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

cosanostra wrote: »

Rescue 118 appears to be landed on iniskea north for the past 5mins

A Helicopter had been sent out to pick up the Air Accident investigation team off Blackrock Island, due back to shore so thats probably them just landed.

homerjay2005 wrote: »

A Helicopter had been sent out to pick up the Air Accident investigation team off Blackrock Island, due back to shore so thats probably them just landed.

They're on Iniskea north, maybe reports of debri on island isn't black rock but iniskea

homerjay2005 wrote: »

the crash site is 60metres from blackrock though? there was an interview just there where they said a Helicopter was being sent out to blackrock to collect the investigation team so probably collected them and took them to Iniskea or else its a seperate trip after that.

AC Helicopter might have went to Blackrock

The Black Oil wrote: »

In case anyone wishes to.

Thanks for sharing. I think I have a few shots of Paul Ormsby at various airshows hanging from the Heli. I'll send those over.

Some of the people I train with in SARDA together with various Mountain Rescue teams knew Dara well also. The search and rescue dogs have to be trained being winched up with their handlers into the helicopters and also to make sure they're not spooked by the noise. I've heard she really loved the dogs and made a huge fuss of them.

Some photos here ... https://www.facebook.com/pg/Search-and-Rescue-Dog-Association-Ireland-129270807180549/photos/?tab=album&album_id=142159872558309

So is the sequence of events that 118 was on the way back after the rescue whilst 116 was over mayo coastline, heading to provide cover , then advised of 118 returning and 116 then turned back to either land or return to base. Fuel load may not have been an issue

Is there new reports that it may have hit the lighthouse?

ectoraige wrote: »

The second at shannon was maintenance spare only. It appears to be a normal enough arrangement, in fact the two carried out a very similar mission just a week previously with R118 effecting rescue from a Russian trawler with R116 providing top cover.

Ineresting arrangement, thanks to those who responded to my inquiry.

To my non-expert mind it would seem simpler to immediately launch 115 from Shannon as top-cover whilst sending 116 or 117 to Shannon as stand-by, where it could refuel at 'leisure'.

That would mean 115 out fully-topped-up and crew-fresh, rather than 116 making an hour's transit and dark-site refuelling before even going on station. But I presume CHC have their reasons for doing it their way.

The real solution does appear to be dedicated fixed-wing top-cover, though. Perhaps go in with NI, we do contribute to the ICG-CHC contract for coastal and mountain SAR.

flazio wrote: »

I would have thought that a moment's silence or applause would be a certainty at all sporting events this weekend.

Can I ask if there has been any reported incidents of birds flying into the engine airtake of these aircraft? The theory I've heard that the helicopter disturbed birds nesting on Blackrock island and one flew into the engine does seem plausible to my untrained mind.
Also, long shot here but does the light House have any surveillance equipment? Even a security camera that was intended for intruders might have seen something.

I had wondered about a bird strike myself not many people mentioning it a possibility!

I doubt it would need cctv have you seen its location

irishgeo wrote: »

A bird strike would surely have given time for a mayday.

Or the rotors clipped the rocks
Fragments of the blades on the island?
Forward momentum sending the craft 80 metres into the sea leaving possibility of mayday calls through inertia forces on the crew following impact ?

flazio wrote: »

Even a security camera that was intended for intruders might have seen something.

Have you seen the island ?

Storm 10 wrote: »

Folks I just sent an email to the IRFU to see if they will honor the four heroes with a minutes silence on Saturday. Will you guys do the same and email info@irishrugby.ie it would be a fitting tribute to them their colleagues and families

Magnificent and apt idea
Followed by a hovering rescue chopper above

thestar wrote: »

Is there new reports that it may have hit the lighthouse?

No, because they didn't hit the lighthouse. I'm very sure the lighthouse would have a fair bit of damage if a craft of that size hit it at 175km/h.

It's important to remember, as many have pointed out, these aren't your ordinary pilots. These folks had huge experience flying aircraft in the absolute worse of weather conditions the north Atlantic can throw at them, hovering on a dime 2 to 300 ft above ships in massive waves while whinching people up and down. This are a class of pilots beyond what most normal pilots do.

They would have plenty of experience landing places like Blackrock and so I struggle with the they were confused where they were and hit the cliffs/lighthouse theory

They certainly, I'm my view, did not crash into blackrock due to human error. Something on the craft failed and took R116 down. Again as pointed out before helicopters are super vulnerable to living parts failing like a gearbox failure and have no real redundancy. If a key part of system went them the craft goes.

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Yourself and Irish Steve seem to believe the fallacy that highly trained aviation professionals can't make mistakes.
For those of us working in the industry, we know that that is a very dangerous viewpoint to take.

Just because it's logical doesn't mean it happened and this shouldn't be a working theory by any stretch until there's evidence to support it.

The only reason I can see that a helicopter would want to land on that rock, other than to maintain the light, is a dire emergency caused by a major failure on the aircraft or if they mistook it for Blacksod - which seems unfathomable. If the cloudbase was 300ft and they were using instruments, then if anything that's more reason why they couldn't have mixed up the two, and therefore wouldn't have been anywhere near low enough at a range of six miles from landing.