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We are so good at avoiding the elephant in the room : “Investigators determined that the S-76 was properly equipped” and all blame on the pilot. I don’t buy that. I blame the FAA and its certification policies. It’s very easy these days to get 3D terrain in the cockpit… for experimentals. Shouldn’t cost more than a few AMUs imho, in any case insignificant for anything turbine driven. But the FAA keeps enforcing Flintstone standards and self-serving hefty requirements that make progress economically insane. There is a dim light these last few years as approvals are finally forthcoming but nothing near where we ought to be. The only measure should be : “proven more reliable than what is currently installed”, a very very low bar considering the equipment installed in much of the GA and yes even airline fleets. My drone is better equipped than that S76 or a 10 yr old Gulfstream, let alone a 1960’s Bonanza. Every year there is still a vacuum pump driving a critical function on any N-reg aicraft, the head of the FAA should be fired for incompetence.
I wonder when the NTSB will start to add the attitudes of high-power passengers to the list of causes. Initial articles published indicated that Kobe had “fired” other pilots for not getting him where he needed to be and that this pilot was his “preferred pilot”. I feel extremely bad for all of these families, don’t get me wrong. However, like the Aaliyah crash in 2001, the attitude and demands of a high-power passenger were a factor. The pilot’s decisions were causal, but the passenger was a factor.
The aircraft didn’t need another device of any type to have easily avoided the accident. It was all on the pilot. He had tons of experience both as a pilot in the type copter and lots of experience flying the L.A. basin area. He was totally familiar with the weather. He was given visual routing by the controllers, routing given helicopters on a regular basis. He was obviously very familiar with what they issue , accepting it without question, probably having flown those visual routings many times. He just used poor, poor judgement. More regulations would not have changed that for a moment. He was scud running. Frank Talman, who’s credentials also fit those of the copter pilot, in fact probably even more experienced, did exactly the same thing in his Aztec when he was scud running and flew into the mountains east of L.A. As pilots we are expected to use good judgement. That can’t be legislated.
Classic pilot error. Nothing the FAA could do to a pilot that brakes the rules. Even if the FAA required TAWS you are still not supposed to fly IMC in a VFR aircraft on a VFR flight, and it does not help prevent vertigo. Who knows, having a TAWS requirement may emboldened pilots to brake the rules more, leading to more accidents.
The S-76 had a 4 axis Autopilot, I don’t think your Bonanza came with one. A 4 Axis autopilot has hover capability. This accident should never have happened. Qualified Rotorcraft pilots routinely fly into instrument conditions, do instrument approaches and land safely. This pilot made a bad decision, compounded it with losing spatial orientation and it cost 9 lives. A simple IFR clearance and climb to VFR above the marine layer would have safely ended the situation. He knew the route and the terrain. I am pretty certain Island Helicopter was a ‘VFR only’ 135 operator.
Beating on any agency, operator or individual is not productive. I encourage everyone to look at the certification standards for Private and Commercial for fixed wing and then rotorcraft side by side. There is no instrument training or practical testing at the Private level for Rotorcraft. There is 5 hours training at the Commercial level but no practical testing on Rotorcraft. Yet the VFR requirements have always been lower for Rotorcraft. Under 135 there is only a requirement for training and testing if the operator is approved for IFR operations. Very few rotorcraft are certified for IFR. Historically the need for IFR has not been there and it does kill the utility of rotorcraft to fly IFR as there is really no infrastructure to support it increasing flight times dramatically when forced into fixed wing route structures.
A great alternate route would have been to fly towards Catalina then go north on the airway just past the Class B airspace. No terrain, no traffic, no altitude restrictions. Two engines and they flew to Catalina regularly. Stay on top to destination then find an area to descend.
And, as mentioned by the NTSB, because helicopters have such excellent maneuvering ability, they are permitted to operate at lower altitudes and in reduced VFR visibility that fixed wings can’t. He could have slowed down, stopped, hovered, landed off airport, anything to study the weather ahead. He apparently though headed into it at cruise speed.
Good point about requiring some IMC training for a private helicopter rating. But, that would not have helped in this situation as the pilot had the training. Beating up on the individual (pilot) is productive, his poor judgment killed 8 people.
Regardless of what the company’s or 135 rules require, when encountering IMC, the pilot must revert to flying the instruments. That’s basic. Pretty clearly, this pilot didn’t do that. Loss of control is inevitable, when the pilot relies instead on physiological “feelings” and/or glimpses outside the cockpit. As pilots, we can’t allow external pressures to complete a flight get in the way of basics.
The weather was IFR at Burbank yet company ops specs required it to be VFR (or better). Very simple decision if one has the right mindset. He should have punched the 180 button (assuming it was safe to go back), or at least have landed at Burbank. He flew through controlled airspace at KBUR knowing very well that he was breaking his ops specs rules. The same rules that were designed to keep his passengers safe. It’s one thing to get caught in un-forecast low vis then land, and an entirely different issue to continue in those conditions. Bad pilot decisions and terrible to non-existent company supervision. Off course the company was unsafe!
You are spot on re: the FAA and it’s Flintstone Standards. Anything that helps safety should be allowed. If you can put it in an experimental you should have it in a Certified Aircraft.
Having said that, The FAA should require the same VFR/IFR rules for Helicopters. Over my 53 years of corporate flying I cannot tell you how many times I have had scary encounters with “RUDE” Helicopter pilots flying around in Fixed wing IFR conditions.
The threat of getting fired by High Profile clients or employers is the first thing that should cause a pilot to quit “on the spot”. I have been the sacrificial lamb in this case more than once. I like living too much to have cratered to a moron High Profile boss.
This wasn’t a case of “Inadvertent IFR”; this was a case of “Advertent IFR”: any time you’re mucking around in reduced visibility, there’s always a possibility that you could lose all visual reference. Especially in fog. (Been there; done that)
There’s a saying in the rotary wing world: “When you go down, you slow down”. I think that’s the main error here: the pilot did not manage his speed to compensate for his visual conditions; had he done so, it is possible he could have “winkled” through to destination. (Maybe not a smart thing to do, but in a situation where it’s an absolute necessity…) At a minimum, there would have been sufficient reaction time to land or do a “one eighty” and return to better conditions.
If you’re going to ‘muck about’ in low viz conditions, you have to have a plan - something in your hip pocket on which to rely.
Something like: Upon losing visual reference;
Go on the dials
Note your heading
Note the reciprocal and commence a level turn toward the low ground
Maintain altitude
Fly back to better conditions
Now, if you’re surrounded by hills as in the Kobe accident, you better have intimate knowledge of the lay of the land or be equipped with synthetic vision. (A real boon, BTW)
Given the general area of operations and historical weather conditions, I can’t believe that this was the pilot’s first encounter with reduced visibility operations; why he didn’t slow down will always remain a mystery.
(I post as a dual qualified pilot: rotary- and fixed-wing)
Very Interesting viewpoint. While I am not arguing about the efficiency or lack thereof of the FAA, this crash is 100% the responsibility of the pilot. To enter into Marginal VFR conditions in rising terrain is dangerous. Terrain warning equipment on a helicopter is also an interesting idea. Nevertheless, you got no business being at or below 1000 feet when the hills around you are higher, UNLESS YOU CAN SEE the terrain. Try that in any aircraft. BTW the entire time his TAWS would be screaming “terrain terrain” visual conditions or not. By definition, helicopters fly close to the terrain regularly and well below that acceptable for most other forms of flight. Why? Because we can hover and can land almost anywhere. When the pilot got to Van Nuys and asked to transition, the tower questioned why he wasn’t on a special VFR clearance, because it was already below VFR minimums for normal flights. Then after getting his code, SOCAL couldn’t see him due to terrain. The 11 minutes he waited for clearance he was hovering over a parking lot with low clouds above and rising terrain around. It was that moment when he made a climbing left hand turn INTO the clouds and impacted seconds later. As a 6000 hour commercial rated pilot who used to own and operate a heli almost daily, I agree with the NTSB conclusion, not so much with all the equipment recommendations. Very simply, the pilot had made this run probably hundreds of times and was over confident and pressed on into IFR conditions near rising terrain, costing the lives of all souls on board. How can an operator anticipate this marginal VFR day is better or worse than the last one. BTW there was no VFR traffic flying into or out of Van Nuys at the time. No police helicopters flying either. Its the answer to the oldest question in flying, “Do you want to be there when you get there?”
ADS-B as it is called now was turned down by both the FAA and the DOD when I suggested this system of aircraft tracking in 1989. I was a radar, communication (sea, land, and satellite) and navigation tech that liked to fly search and rescue for the CAP and realized using the GPS how accurate this type system of aircraft tracking was over the ATC radar I maintained.
The problem has always been the fear of a single point of break down, jammed GPS signal. It is a handy side safety system that has no real back up. They are warming up to it now with numerous ground stations that can augment the satellites.
It still isn’t quite there yet, but once the ground stems are in place that can be ‘boosted’ they will likely move to it.
A subject that is rarely taught in any aviation related training, dealing with “high profile” or celebrity types who pressure crews to do things they know better. I have been lucky enough to fly for companies that do a good job at screening out these type of clients. As one chief pilot told me that is his job. My current company has such a long waiting list of prospective clients, they can afford to. It is also a skill to know how to say unable to a client without being confrontational or getting fired. Not a lot of pilots have this skill, a lot of time this is gained through experience!