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TH-57 crashes near Whiting

I just found out that one of the casualties of the crash was the grandson of a good friend of mine. I'd appreciate it if anyone could send me a PM with some of the crash details. I'm sure he'd like to know what happened. Nothing classified or too detailed, just a general overview.

Thank you.
 
Are we allowed to specualate ? I'm not going to speculate on the cause of the mishap but given what the article says, this was - I think - a FAM flight out to OLF Spencer with second pump stud riding in the back.

I'll look in my logbook and see if this was a Bravo or a Charlie. That will give me more clue.

But a death in a '57 is highly unusual. The Bell 206 series is the safest single engine aircraft (statistically on flight hours) in the entire world. Short of flying into a mountain or catastrophic mast bumping it's really hard to be in a position where the aircaft meets the ground with sufficient impact forces to kill someone.

We'll see.

until then thoughts and prayers to the family of the lost and injured. can't imagine what must be going on in the HT's and TW-5 right now. You do the same manuevers/flight profiles in the same aircraft day after day, year after year for decades and you get the feeling it's a fairly benign environment - then something like this slaps you in the face and brings you back to reality that this is a serious, difficult, and dangerous business we are in...
 
True story -

In 1992 I was flying two FAM-6's out to OLF Pace - passing Zig-Zag field gave stud #1 a Simulated Engine Failure at Altitude (700' agl I believe?).

We have a a full bag of gas, two burly studs, me at 230# and a DA well over 3000' - temp had to be in the 90's.

So stud #1 enters perfect auto, completes his procedures and hands me the controlls - in those days SOP was the IP did the recovery, zeroed out the VSI, and handed back control to the stud who re-entered the channel on altitude at 90 degrees.

So here I am beginning my wave off - bringing on twist grip pulling a little power to stop the autorotative decent - full throttle, pullping collective and Nr droops way way bad - Ng still at Idle. I'm thinking "we're fvcked". All I could get out on the ICS was "hang on this is for real".

The flare did almost nothing to slow my groundspeed - but it did arrest my decent a little. The pull was fine and the cushion ok but here we are digging furrows in what I am now discovering is a peanut field. I'm thinking "god please don't let me catch a skid and flip over ..please please please.."

We finally come to a halt after god knows how long we skidded across the dirt. Collective is up, throttle is full open and engine sitting there at ground idle.

Every '57 in the channel is witnessing this of course and hollerinag at me over the radio - victor and uniform - to se if we are ok. My poor studs are stunned.

Shutdown - twist grip and fuel valve and battery. 3 hours later the truck arrives.

All I'm thinking is please let maintenance find something really wrong and it wasn't something I should have found on pre-flight..uggh

Bottom line - Fuel control failure - b-nut cracked (over tightened it turned out) and backed off. Thankfully maint was able to reproduce the whole thing.

Factory Hand 190 was the bird btw if anyone is curious.

Had I not been set up for a field I would have gone into the trees and it would have been a painful mishap.

end of sea story...
 
We're always allowed to speculate, but mis-information is just as bad (if not worse) than no information. Just in case anyone was curious, 163335 is a TH-57B that I flew on 26 Sep 2000, it's also the aircraft that I downed my safe-for-solo checkride. Eerie. It also made me realize that when preparing my resume, I'm probably missing out on 3.0 of helo PIC time because they didn't log (and I didn't catch) my 2 ET's after that pink sheet. Funny how you remember things...

Just talked to a buddy who's a brand new instructor in HT-8, and yes - it was a FAM. HT-8 and HT-18 are both in holding patterns until they rule out a mechanical problem. I won't go into details about what he said about pending investigation - however he did tell me that the instructor checked in with Spencer, told them that he would be working north for 10-15 minutes, and after over 30 minutes when they didn't hear from him again, alarm bells went off. They were on the ground for over an hour before they found them. Other than that, he speculated alot but I won't share that info at this time...
 
MasterBates said:
Yeah, the 60 kinda autos like a rock. 206's auto fairly good.

Any update on how the other stud and IP are doing?
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The article above talks about spinal compression injuries - other than that, I'm sure details about medical stuff are being kept on a tight leash.
 
Hey everyone.

Sorry to dig up an older thread about a sad subject, but I was just curious if there was any other news about the accident or what happened to any of the other people on board. I stumbled upon this thread while doing a google search... Jesse, the pilot that passed away, was one of my best friends back in high school.

Me and some of his other old friends from here in Southern California attended a memorial service at his parents house last month, but at the time the whole accident was still under investigation and no one ever mentioned what happened. I guess it really doesn't matter at this point, but me and the rest of his old friends that really cared about him would still like to know. I'd rather ask if anyone here knows than go bug his parents for more info anytime soon.

I'm guessing no one has any more information or it would've been added to the thread already, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Or it would be cool to find anyone that knew him since most of us around here hadn't talked to him in a couple of years. Feel free to PM me if you'd rather not post stuff on the open thread.

Thanks
 
EFCA said:
Hey everyone.

Sorry to dig up an older thread about a sad subject, but I was just curious if there was any other news about the accident or what happened to any of the other people on board. I stumbled upon this thread while doing a google search... Jesse, the pilot that passed away, was one of my best friends back in high school.

Me and some of his other old friends from here in Southern California attended a memorial service at his parents house last month, but at the time the whole accident was still under investigation and no one ever mentioned what happened. I guess it really doesn't matter at this point, but me and the rest of his old friends that really cared about him would still like to know. I'd rather ask if anyone here knows than go bug his parents for more info anytime soon.

I'm guessing no one has any more information or it would've been added to the thread already, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Or it would be cool to find anyone that knew him since most of us around here hadn't talked to him in a couple of years. Feel free to PM me if you'd rather not post stuff on the open thread.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Sorry to say, but there is not any real news. Some parts of the investigation are still ongoing. I doubt the Safety Center will release anything until everything is compiled. When there is more public info, however, I will certainly post here. At this point, the purpose of the investigation is to add to our knowledge banks and learn to fly better.

I didn't know Jesse personally, so I won't presume to speak for him. Still, he died in pursuit of a goal and for a cause. It seems to me that there are worse ways to go.
 
pdx said:
I didn't know Jesse personally, so I won't presume to speak for him. Still, he died in pursuit of a goal and for a cause. It seems to me that there are worse ways to go.
Click to expand...

I have to admit (and I assume most aviators/hopefulls would agree) that has to be among the best ways to go. It is terribly sad to hear of any losses to any community, but I know that if I am to pass I would like it to be doing what I love. I imagine that to be the mentality of most, probably including the individual involved.

My best wishes to him, and his family. From what I have read the past couple years have seen very high rates of 'potential' class A (depending on creativity and accounting) mishaps. I hope that is reduced in the future.

Stay safe to everyone currently serving in harms way.
 
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