Posted on 03/11/2018 5:23:01 PM PDT by Enchante
A tourist helicopter plunged into the East River on Sunday night, leaving at least five people trapped inside the sinking vessel while the pilot scrambled to safety, police sources said.
The Eurocopter AS350 went down around 88th Street, near Gracie Mansion, at about 7:15 p.m., sources said.
The pilot was able to get out and climb aboard a raft — but five others remained trapped inside the upside-down helicopter, according to sources.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Save his passengers.
Sometimes it can be done. Sometimes it simply can't. But it is what he's supposed to do.
Many times life just sucks.
So if it had been equipped with pontoons it would have remained upright???
Looks like the rotor was still spinning pretty well when the tips hit the water as it rolled over.
Didn’t another one go in the river a few years ago.
Here it is, I found it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/nyregion/helicopter-crashes-in-east-river.html
Helicopters are "vessels"?
and how do you know he didn’t try or any other specifics related to the crash such as being inverted.
You ever been inverted underwater straped in an aircraft seat......Curious
Amazing
There will be no shortage of coulda-shouldas here. It will be studied, future pilots will have the lessons learned as part of their training, and ultimately lives will be saved, those lives will have been paid for in advance, payed for in blood.
Many people can’t find their bathroom door in the middle of the night.
That seemed to be a no win situation, as it appeared obvious the pilot was unable to make land and even if he could, no guarantees in a split second emergency landing on land either.
I’d like to see the rest of the video if it exists.
I don’t. I didn’t even say saving any passenger was even possible. But saving them is what he’s supposed to do.
BTW, I went through the ditch, invert, escape in a dummy F-8 cockpit in the base pool at beautiful Beaufort MCAS when I was 9 years old.
In this type of situation you’re pretty busy...
Agree. I don’t mind speculation, but assigning blame this early is probably not prudent.
I worked for an outfit that uses helicopters for water sampling and other environmental testing. Before anybody flies on that helicopter, they must take and pass Ditch and Dive Training. This is a hands on class where you are strapped into a helicopter mock-up and crashed with great force into a swimming pool. In order to pass the class you have to unbuckle, open the door, and get out within a certain amount of time. If you are unable to get out, there is a rescue diver on the apparatus to stuff a regulator into your mouth and haul you out of the water.
I have known several people who took the training, and they all said that they were shocked with the severity and violence of the impact, and it took a few seconds to collect themselves to exit the helicopter. They also said that without advance training and a firmly fastened seat-belt, there is no way they were going to get out of that apparatus without help.
We did wind up dropping a helicopter into the water a few years ago, and all of our trained crewmen got out safely, so we know the training works.
I dare say the pilot of this chopper had received similar training at some point. Obviously, the passengers had not.
when you were 9 Oh Ok
I had to wait till I was 19 at NAS Pensacola it wasnt an F8 Cockpit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biuVMQDgayo
Just seems not right flying that way.
I get nervous whenever I see Trump flying in them but I guess those helicopters are extra safe with lots of redundancies.
Well look at that a sensible remark in regard to this crash and thread. Nice job
I love helicopters. In non-war time applications they save thousands of lives and are a great tool. In air support role for large police departments they’ve become invaluable in helping capture bad guys etc.
Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not blaming the pilot, there are a LOT of things we are supposed to do in life.
We try, we fail more often than we’d like.
But we’re supposed to try!
Sometime even the best of us fail to try for circumstances beyond our control, sometimes there are lessons to be learned from those times.
When we learn and teach those lessons, we save ourselves and others future grief.
.
Trained, perhaps, but “Sully” he is not!
.
The intercom....Are you serious there is no intercom unless everyone on board has on a head set and is connected to the ICS and then they are tourist and a freeking out to start with.
The noise level in the aft cabin is tremendous
Watch a YouTube video on water training for Marines in downed helicopters. A civilian in such a situation has no chance. When I was in the Army we did train for such contingency ON LAND and would never ever want to experience it let alone water.
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