Rescue 116 Crash at Blackrock, Co Mayo(Mod note in post 1)

Means Of Escape

Tenger wrote: »

I didnt state or imply that s/he was incorrect.
I dont disagree with Boatmad. To be very honest I would not have the expertise to do so. Hence I have not done so. I had not realised the level of tech that modern boats carried, the discussion has been very illuminating on that front. So thanks for that.

My point is that s/he keeps returning to the question of Why? In a manner that seems as if others are ignoring that question.
I too want to know Why?

CFIT
Approach altitude too low for distance from destination
Poor overall knowledge of area /terrain and the obstacles associated with it
Incomplete data in craft system
Delayed response to execute a tactical manoeuvre
Spatial disorientation /spatial awareness resulting in incorrect/delayed action when performed

Far from speculation but certainly debatable at this juncture

Gaoth Laidir

Rescue 116 has just roared overhead here now at 3000 ft and 138 knots. Could hear it coming for over a minute. Quite a sound off it.

Gadgetman496

Sniffer dogs to be used in search for missing Rescue 116 crew.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0428/871204-rescue-116/

icjzfmq7ewon1t

This isn't directly related to rescue 116 so please remove if deemed unsuitable

https://m.soundcloud.com/doc-on-one/a-good-day-at-blackrock

nuac

Avianna Witty Weekend wrote: »

This isn't directly related to rescue 116 so please remove if deemed unsuitable

https://m.soundcloud.com/doc-on-one/a-good-day-at-blackrock

Thanks TW

Played that just now, Beautiful and sad.

Never on BR, but have sailed in the vicinity.

Bad currents around it, and heavy swell. The Atlantic swell is increased by the shallowing and irregular bottom and the constraints of the land. Sad that even an experienced Keeper was caught out by it.

The Light House keeper and their families were heroic. Imagine having to tether your children to iron pegs in the ground!

icjzfmq7ewon1t

Very sad story nicely told. Sounds a very dangerous place. Just imagine having to anchor the children but if they weren't they'd be swept away.
Lighthouse keepers were indeed brave men to work under these conditions.

plodder

There's an interesting post today on pprune, which sounds credible in terms of content. Digital terrain model had Blackrock at 50ft, and a defect in the scanned chart showed it (possibly) at 28ft. The final digit of the 282 is obscured apparently.

zuutroy

plodder wrote: »

There's an interesting post today on pprune, which sounds credible in terms of content. Digital terrain model had Blackrock at 50ft, and a defect in the scanned chart showed it (possibly) at 28ft. The final digit of the 282 is obscured apparently.

plodder

It's debatable I suppose, though that's a photo of a physical chart I presume, rather than the raster version on the aircraft display. So, there could be further degradation in that case. The overprinting of Duvillaun More is particularly bad as well. Either way, imo the quality of the information presentation is not great; same for the charts on the route guide.

Turtwig

If anything surely an obscured "2" would draw your attention to it more. It's perfectly readable imo, at most it would make the viewer double take at the number to determine whether it was "2" or "7"?

Gaoth Laidir

Turtwig wrote: »

If anything surely an obscured "2" would draw your attention to it more. It's perfectly readable imo, at most it would make the viewer double take at the number to determine whether it was "2" or "7"?

There's still no excuse for having text obscured like that, especially the Duvillaun More.

Cloudio9

Turtwig wrote: »

If anything surely an obscured "2" would draw your attention to it more. It's perfectly readable imo, at most it would make the viewer double take at the number to determine whether it was "2" or "7"?

Well with the benefit of hindsight we're all focusing on it. It's far from ideal the way it appears if you're scanning a number of different points on a map.

TomOnBoard

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

There's still no excuse for having text obscured like that, especially the Duvillaun More.

On any objective assessment, you'd have to say that maps & charts used in navigation by aviators at the 'bleeding edge' of flying activity should be of the highest standard, conforming to a large number of quality criteria, including being crisp and clear, totally informative and without a shred of ambiguity that could lead to bad decisions.

When I saw that Pprune post, I was struck by the story that was being outlined. Doubts about the quality of charting certainly formed in my mind from reading the post, especially as it is intimated that a rasterised version of an unclear/ambiguous chart subsequently may have formed part of the on- board display.

We (the great unwashed) cant know what the crew looked at on that terrible night. However, we know that the AAIU has the CVR as well as SOP packets of charts and other information that will have been used by the crew in flight planning. AAIU will be able to deduce the extent to which all this is of relevance to what happened, and we have to await its deliberations.

However, we (the great unwashed) can say that IF the photo of the chart that was posted is an accurate representation of the standard of charts in use which was then further degraded by the scanning process, serious questions arise.

If the Pprune scenario accurately represents the information available on the night and could have contributed to poor understanding of the threats that were out there, and IF any/all actions were not mitigated by other information, that simply seems dreadful to me.

plodder

Cloudio9 wrote: »

Well with the benefit of hindsight we're all focusing on it. It's far from ideal the way it appears if you're scanning a number of different points on a map.

And we're looking at a paper chart, not at one of the MFD screens on board. A fine detail like that could easily be obscured on a digital display. It depends on the size of the screen, its resolution, the quality of the graphics. Probably the detail would be visible if you have the ability to zoom in, but then you would have to have a reason to zoom in. We'll have to wait to find out what the investigators make of it.

irishgeo

plodder wrote: »

And we're looking at a paper chart, not at one of the MFD screens on board. A fine detail like that could easily be obscured on a digital display. It depends on the size of the screen, its resolution, the quality of the graphics. Probably the detail would be visible if you have the ability to zoom in, but then you would have to have a reason to zoom in. We'll have to wait to find out what the investigators make of it.

wont they able to check it on one of the other choppers screens.

plodder

irishgeo wrote: »

wont they able to check it on one of the other choppers screens.

I guess that is what they will do all right.

ElNino

This is very sad to listen to

BoatMad

plodder wrote: »

And we're looking at a paper chart, not at one of the MFD screens on board. A fine detail like that could easily be obscured on a digital display. It depends on the size of the screen, its resolution, the quality of the graphics. Probably the detail would be visible if you have the ability to zoom in, but then you would have to have a reason to zoom in. We'll have to wait to find out what the investigators make of it.

The aircraft had both vector and raster charts in its electronic mapping. Though I believe the main ones are vector. Hence the scanned image from a paper chart is totally misleading.

Blackrock should and would have given a considerable radar return especially that low , however I suspect from the data in the report, that the range was set too great. Its a mystery however that they did not detect it and it will be interesting to see if the final report provides any clues as to why

CFIT
Approach altitude too low for distance from destination
Poor overall knowledge of area /terrain and the obstacles associated with it
Incomplete data in craft system
Delayed response to execute a tactical manoeuvre
Spatial disorientation /spatial awareness resulting in incorrect/delayed action when performed

Far from speculation but certainly debatable at this juncture

with the exception of point 3 I think we can say yours is a reasonable conclusion
I would argue the aircraft had two sources of information on Blackrock , the only conclusion you can then reach is that neither where investigated sufficiently to trigger concern

note that the altitude decision is entirely rational , given the low cloud , it would make sense to cloudbreak over the open sea and not anywhere near land, This is precisely what they did, its the fact that they didnt "clear" the route that is the issue.

Collie D

I just read this article and the following quote stood out

"In the distance, it was a grateful sound to hear the engines of R116 making its way to us," the D?n Laoghaire Coast Guard wrote on their Facebook page.

D?n Laoghaire Coast Guard thanked everyone who had assisted in the call out. “It was an emotional but thankful sight to see our helicopter, R116 keeping an eye on us.”

Have they re-registered a helicopter or named a new one in memory or something?

kmart6

Posted way back.

faoiarvok

Collie D wrote: »

Have they re-registered a helicopter or named a new one in memory or something?

The helicopters aren't actually named or registered Rescue 11x, that's the callsign used by them when on a rescue mission.

The registrations are
EI-ICG
EI-ICU
EI-ICA
EI-ICR (crashed)
EI-ICD

(Spelling out GUARD, as in Irish Coast Guard)

Growler!!!

Collie D wrote: »

I just read this article and the following quote stood out

"In the distance, it was a grateful sound to hear the engines of R116 making its way to us," the D?n Laoghaire Coast Guard wrote on their Facebook page.

D?n Laoghaire Coast Guard thanked everyone who had assisted in the call out. “It was an emotional but thankful sight to see our helicopter, R116 keeping an eye on us.”

Have they re-registered a helicopter or named a new one in memory or something?

No. Whichever heli was/is assigned to the Dublin base carries the Callsign "Rescue 116" while on a call out. They will use the aircraft reg when out training.

Alun

As an aside, R116 was actually returning from a rescue up north on Slieve Donard at the time, which I just happened to witness first hand from a vantage point not too far away. I was just checking on the Mournes MRT Facebook page to see what the story was, and looked up the track of R116 on Marinetraffic, and wondered why they'd headed to that area on the way back before returning to base. Now I know why!

Psychlops

Airframes have swapped since Saturday,

As it stands:

EI-ICG~Sligo~R118
EI-ICU~Waterford~R117
EI-ICA~Dublin~R116
EI-ICD~Shannon~R115

Gadgetman496

Psychlops wrote: »

Airframes have swapped since Saturday,

As it stands:

EI-ICG~Sligo~R118
EI-ICU~Waterford~R117
EI-ICA~Dublin~R116
EI-ICD~Shannon~R115

So they swapped Dublin with Shannon?

Why would they do that, what purpose would it serve?

Psychlops

Gadgetman496 wrote: »

So they swapped Dublin with Shannon?

Why would they do that, what purpose would it serve?

SNN is where they do major maintenance.

donkey balls

Gadgetman496 wrote: »

So they swapped Dublin with Shannon?

Why would they do that, what purpose would it serve?

I don't know the ins and outs regarding CHC/ICG operations could it be something to do regarding MX of the heli, We use to swop airframes around so that an aircraft due in for MX would swop base and fly to the intended base were the MX be carried out.

Atlantic Dawn

Prime Time on RTE 1 covering R116 now, from the intro it seems to be focusing on lack of accurate map data for crash.

Cloudio9

Looks like CHC are about to get a booting here.

Cloudio9

Katie Hannon is very well researched. Top journalist.