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

sparrowcar

Contact lost just before 0100 off the west coast of Achill island on a rescue mission.
Search in progress including all available ships and Rescue 115.

Hopefully a positive outcome to this.

Please keep replies civil, and respectful of the crew and their families.

Please do not speculate as to any cause unless you have a factual basis to do so (and can back it up with information released to the public).

There will be zero tolerance for troublemakers or those that choose to ignore these guidelines.

There are other moderator messages in the thread, as a result of issues that have arisen, and we will be less forgiving going forward, due to the ongoing sensitivity of this incident

As per normal boards guidance, any comments on moderation are off topic and should be addressed directly to mods or cmods by PM. Any part of posts which are off topic in such a manner may be edited or removed, with possible sanction. Non news posts will be moved to the parallel R116 Non news and discussion thread

Should any new reports, updates or news stories come out, posts which can be boiled down to "I Told You So" or other triumphalism about previous commentary will result in significant punishment.

Any threadbans will carry over to any replacement thread should this approach 10,000 posts

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Alun

There was another very recent rescue of a casualty from a Russian trawler off the coast of Kerry where an ICG heli had to provide top cover, which was, I think, much further out than this one, and the Air Corps Casa was unavailable for that one too.

http://www.thejournal.ie/coast-guard-rescue-2-3251183-Feb2017/

homerjay2005

Irish Steve wrote: »

and to try and ensure that a brave, professional and capable crew are not dishonoured by comments made as a result of a lack of background information that is relatively easy to find if a bit of searching is done.

with respect Ste, i dont see any posts here that dishonour the crew at all and i think you are being very presumptuous if you think people are blaming the crew because they are not.

if somebody suggests that they were flying low for example, that could be a failure of equipment that caused that and have nothing to do with the crew. the discussion on here is no different to whats happening everywhere however at least here, its mostly factual and realistic discussion or anything thats not, is ruled out immediately.

ED E

To be fair to Steve he may have mod snipped posts that the rest of us will have missed.

FrancieBrady

May be a stupid question but what is the purpose of 'top cover'?

I thought it was to provide a rescue capability if there is a problem with the other helicopter.
If it is better carried out by a fixed wing craft then I obviously don't have a grasp of what it is they do.

Cloudio9

I struggle with the Blackrock collision theory because the Blacksod landing manoeuvre is presumably something they've done dozens of times and would be conscious of the location of the elevated lighthouse.

It's not like they were visiting an alien coastal location for the first time in difficult conditions

irishgeo

Cloudio9 wrote: »

I struggle with the Blackrock collision theory because the Blacksod landing manoeuvre is presumably something they've done dozens of times and would be conscious of the location of the elevated lighthouse.

It's not like they were visiting an alien coastal location for the first time in difficult conditions

An equipment failure could have led to the collision.

ED E

FrancieBrady wrote: »

May be a stupid question but what is the purpose of 'top cover'?

I thought it was to provide a rescue capability if there is a problem with the other helicopter.
If it is better carried out by a fixed wing craft then I obviously don't have a grasp of what it is they do.

MRCC Director described it as a comms role too. At higher alt they can get radio coverage "over the horizon" back to SNN etc is my understanding.

Dunno how a fixed wing would help after a ditch?

Pinch Flat

irishgeo wrote: »

An equipment failure could have led to the collision.

Would it be fair to say than a total electrical failure would lead to total loss of comms, auto-hover, flight director etc? Is there battery back up for key systems or any other means of keeping key systems going in such a scenario?

Negative_G

irishgeo wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/canadian-firm-has-helicopters-across-30-countries-35532674.html

I see. So what should have been said is that the Dept Of Defence advised transport that they could provide a service, of course there is no mention of the level of investment required or what a 'significant discount' was exactly. I would consider €50million a significant discount on a €500m contract. It does make a good sound bite though, for finger pointing if nothing else. Certainly no mention of a 'phone call to the minister' as you put it.

Regardless, it is clear that aside from the organisational issues that the AC currently face they would not have been able to provide a service comparable to that of CHC without significant investment and rearrangement of operational commitments. The AW139s were purchased for army co-op as a direct result of the cessation of AC SAR ops.

Perhaps another consideration is that given the operational area that CHC are responsible for, should they have their own fixed wing assets at their disposable for long range SAR ops?

ItsLikeThis

Has there been any indication of the condition of the man being rescued? On the early rte news reports there was someone who I assume was him walking away from 118 holding his hand after the rescue. Do the trawlers stop fishing and try close the gap for the coastguard?

DOCARCH

ED E wrote: »

MRCC Director described it as a comms role too. At higher alt they can get radio coverage "over the horizon" back to SNN etc is my understanding.

Dunno how a fixed wing would help after a ditch?

Yes, top cover is mainly for the purpose of relaying communications for rescues far offshore.

irishgeo

Negative_G wrote: »

I see. So what should have been said is that the Dept Of Defence advised transport that they could provide a service, of course there is no mention of the level of investment required or what a 'significant discount' was exactly. I would consider €50million a significant discount on a €500m contract. It does make a good sound bite though, for finger pointing if nothing else. Certainly no mention of a 'phone call to the minister' as you put it.

Regardless, it is clear that aside from the organisational issues that the AC currently face they would not have been able to provide a service comparable to that of CHC without significant investment and rearrangement of operational commitments. The AW139s were purchased for army co-op as a direct result of the cessation of AC SAR ops.

Perhaps another consideration is that given the operational area that CHC are responsible for, should they have their own fixed wing assets at their disposable for long range SAR ops?

i agree with everything you say. the air corps might not have pilot shortages if they were running the helicopter rescue service.

TallGlass

ED E wrote: »

MRCC Director described it as a comms role too. At higher alt they can get radio coverage "over the horizon" back to SNN etc is my understanding.

Dunno how a fixed wing would help after a ditch?

I imagine, time is of the essence in an situation like this. A major operation would have been triggered right away to the scene.

In this case, it took the communications center to not get a response over radio to trigger a response, which I imagine could cause a delay again valuable in situations like this. Anyone know if this is mins or seconds with that it would be triggered to send out someone to look with no response for the aircraft?

Discodog

Interview on Newstalk saying that the AC hope to land on the Ireland.

Tabnabs

Discodog wrote: »

Interview on Newstalk saying that the AC hope to land on the Ireland.

I wonder where this chopper is, they have all the experience needed for that job, in practically all conditions. The offer to use has been put out already.

cosanostra

Will the weather allow a dive today?

Alkers

irishgeo wrote: »

This is the same air corps that phoned up the minister in 2010 stating they could do it for far cheaper than CHC were being paid.

Yes but they didn't get assigned the role so hence do not still have the same capabilities any more - the AC's water rescue skill have likely significantly deteriorated since CHC were awarded the contract.

Furthermore, the CASA's primary role is fishery protection and with only two aircraft they are pretty busy at this role, anything over and above this can be seen as a bonus.

If CHC are awarded the Contract, I don't think it's appropriate that they should be reliant on a separate organisation to provide top cover and should be fully capable of doing so themselves, as they did in this case. There seems to be advantages and disadvantages for both rotary and fixed wing craft for the top cover role.

elastico

cosanostra wrote: »

Will the weather allow a dive today?

Doubtful today and any other day in the reliable forecast by the sounds of things.

Nothing to dive to yet anyway.

Cameras down first to see what can be done next.

ED E

TallGlass wrote: »

I imagine, time is of the essence in an situation like this. A major operation would have been triggered right away to the scene.

In this case, it took the communications center to not get a response over radio to trigger a response, which I imagine could cause a delay again valuable in situations like this. Anyone know if this is mins or seconds with that it would be triggered to send out someone to look with no response for the aircraft?

Sounds like they were in regular but not constant contact. Along the lines of heading to refuel which gave an expectation of a report of landing within 30 mins.

After MH370 the commercial airliners are getting a "free" upgrade to the heartbeat check from their satellite provider so the interval between reports is much much lower (60min to 15min). Not sure if the S92s have a sat link though? Even at 15m the search area would have been huge.

Negative_G

FrancieBrady wrote: »

May be a stupid question but what is the purpose of 'top cover'?

Top cover has two functions.

1. It serves as a line of communications to ATC. It also allows the helicopter to radio details of the patient back to mainland and they can then decide where best to send the patient if they are critically ill.

2. In the event of the rescue helicopter ditching, top cover can route to the scene immediately to initiate a rescue. If a helicopter is used, it can obviously winch survivers to safety provided they know where the helicopter ditched as they would not generally be visual during the operation.

A fixed wing Aircraft such as a Casa is a far better platform for long range SAR. It has the ability to shadow the helicopter all the way to and from the coast. It can use on board radar to give the helicopter crew accurate vectors toward the vessel by using AIS, therefore allowing it to potentially gain extra time on station. It can loiter overhead for many hours, keeping "eyes on" the rescue whilst providing the crew with updates and relaying of messages. In the even of a ditching the casa has the ability to deploy life rafts from the aircraft. It can also fire flares to provide illumination.

In short, the Casa is far more suitable for long range SAR ops than another helicopter.

chuckles30

I find it very interesting reading that the Air Corp should be providing Top Cover for these missions as I know that Rescue 115 carried out two of these medevacs off the west coast recently and in both instances Top Cover was provided by Rescue 117. The first of these was carried out in extremely dangerous looking conditions and involved assistance from one of the naval ships.

NUTLEY BOY

cosanostra wrote: »

Will the weather allow a dive today?

UK MET forecast for sea area MALIN is S.W. gale force 8 veering to the W. later.

Otherwise, wind W. to S.W. 6 to 8 with sea state high to very rough.

Rain or showers expected with visibility moderate to poor.

Means Of Escape

Tenger wrote: »

The post by Irish Steve was aimed towards the speculative posts of "maybe they got mixed up and thought they were going to Blacksod at sea level rather than Blackrock at 300ft , hence why they flew into the island" type posts.

Of course in any investigation by the relevant authorites all possible causes will be explored. However the keyboard investigators making light of the high levels of professionalism are not showing respect to the memory of the R116 and their SAR colleagues who continue to do their work off our coasts. The need to get answers is apparent but as with any aviation incident there is a period of waiting that can be quite long.

No one is making light of the crews ability or professionalism but crashes do happen to the best of pilots /racing drivers etc
More often than not the aircraft/cars are found to be working perfectly and well maintained .
Sadly this may also be the case

FrancieBrady

Negative_G wrote: »

Top cover has two functions.

1. It serves as a line of communications to ATC. It also allows the helicopter to radio details of the patient back to mainland and they can then decide where best to send the patient if they are critically ill.

2. In the event of the rescue helicopter ditching, top cover can route to the scene immediately to initiate a rescue. If a helicopter is used, it can obviously winch survivers to safety provided they know where the helicopter ditched as they would not generally be visual during the operation.

A fixed wing Aircraft such as a Casa is a far better platform for long range SAR. It has the ability to shadow the helicopter all the way to and from the coast. It can use on board radar to give the helicopter crew accurate vectors toward the vessel by using AIS, therefore allowing it to potentially gain extra time on station. It can loiter overhead for many hours, keeping "eyes on" the rescue whilst providing the crew with updates and relaying of messages. In the even of a ditching the casa has the ability to deploy life rafts from the aircraft. It can also fire flares to provide illumination.

In short, the Casa is far more suitable for long range SAR ops than another helicopter.

Great, thanks for taking the time. And everyone else.

Alkers

chuckles30 wrote: »

I find it very interesting reading that the Air Corp shouldcould be providing Top Cover for these missions as I know that Rescue 115 carried out two of these medevacs off the west coast recently and in both instances Top Cover was provided by Rescue 117. The first of these was carried out in extremely dangerous looking conditions and involved assistance from one of the naval ships.

It's not a case that they should be providing top cover, more that they are sometimes available to provide top cover.

Tabnabs

elastico wrote: »

Lighthouses, for example, are funded by contributions from commercial ships.

Supplemented heavily by an Irish Government Exchequer contribution.

homerjay2005

all the media attention has switched to "defence forces staff shortage" now this morning.

Alkers

homerjay2005 wrote: »

all the media attention has switched to "defence forces staff shortage" now this morning.

Which is a separate issue really. If this incident turns out to be as a result of mechanical failure, it would have happened on the next mission if the CASA had been deployed in this instance.

STB.

chuckles30 wrote: »

I find it very interesting reading that the Air Corp should be providing Top Cover for these missions as I know that Rescue 115 carried out two of these medevacs off the west coast recently and in both instances Top Cover was provided by Rescue 117. The first of these was carried out in extremely dangerous looking conditions and involved assistance from one of the naval ships.

Ireland of course could never have implemented a set up like other countries, i.e. whereby the SAR service comes under the Defence Forces.

The Air Corps attitude is quite clearly "why should we do it" when a foreign private company is being paid €500m to provide SAR.

It's also likely that the majority of the Air Corps current hardware isn't suitable for SAR and is short range stuff.

The failure of successive governments to have an alternative scenario to the private contracts in place needs to be looked at.

Anyway none of this of any help to missing crew, doing their job etc.

roadmaster

i hope this will not come across bad. But who now covers the East coast. Is it as simple and cold that CHC have a contact with the Dept of transport and the spare S92 will be sent to Dublin to take up station or due to the awful events would the Air corps AW139 that is fitted out for SAR would now cover the east coast until the coastguard can get back up and running at Dublin?