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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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Reati

Thargor wrote: »

Thats it pretty much settled then, one of the most freak accidents you'll ever hear of if you know the area, nothing but empty space with a few sharp rocks poking up...

Wouldn't the building be damaged? I am aware this photo was not taken today but surely someone would have reported damage to the buildings or lighthouse if it's CFIT from human error.

Thargor

They might have just hit the rock itself though.

TomOnBoard

Reati wrote: »

Picture of the island from RTE twitter I think

Jeez, RTE put a lot of effort into finding that photo... That must be 20 years old as it clearly predates the installation of solar panels to power the lights... License money well spent, wha???

Cianmcliam

Reati wrote: »

Wouldn't the building be damaged? I am aware this photo was not taken today but surely someone would have reported damage to the buildings or lighthouse if it's CFIT from human error.

The spine of the island runs west-east with the natural peak slightly to the south of the lighthouse, 116 was heading in an easterly direction so if it did hit anything it would be the lighthouse itself or the large outcrop south of it I would think.

Cianmcliam

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Jeez, RTE put a lot of effort into finding that photo... That must be 20 years old as it clearly predates the installation of solar panels to power the lights... License money well spent, wha???

It also seems to be a photo taken of an old photo behind glass, probably on a wall somewhere.

eatmyshorts

Reati wrote: »

Wouldn't the building be damaged? I am aware this photo was not taken today but surely someone would have reported damage to the buildings or lighthouse if it's CFIT from human error.

No one is claiming it physically hit the lighthouse or buildings. But there's a lot of granite around them.

Pretzill

Not an aviation person - just an interest of mine.

But would like to say the loss of this crew, however it happened, is tragic. For those four lost there were hundreds saved because of their dedication, professionalism and bravery.

Please support our air sea rescue, mountain rescue and our RNLI.

Their legacy should be more brave, professionals deployed on this island and its islands, oceans and seas.

Reati

Cianmcliam wrote: »

The spine of the island runs west-east with the natural peak slightly to the south of the lighthouse, 116 was heading in an easterly direction so if it did hit anything it would be the lighthouse itself or the large outcrop south of it I would think.

It's all speculation of course but that's my confusion with how there was no reports of damage to the buildings or lighthouse. I'd imagine an impact of the suspected magnitude would at least shatter the glass in the tower and maybe disable the light.

Bazzy

Reati wrote: »

Wait, you are telling me that a post where I said it's high unlikely the crew crashed into a lighthouse or cliff by mistake is somehow going to upset a family member but posts blaming speculating pilot error and asking questions like "Any update on if they hit the lighthouse?" is ok?

"High unlikely" means its possible or feasible would you not agree?

The facts are very limited at this stage we need to keep this in mind

Reati

eatmyshorts wrote: »

No one is claiming it physically hit the lighthouse or buildings. But there's a lot of granite around them.

Nope but people certainly are speculating it.

So from the general gist of your posts you suspect CFIT on some part of Blackrock?

eatmyshorts

Reati wrote: »

my confusion with how there was no reports of damage to the buildings or lighthouse

No reports in the media.
But that doesn't mean no reports to the people who matter.

jimmycrackcorm

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

The opinions of those from the aviation industry are no more important than those from outside of it. Whatever is said will not bring back the crew. Nobody has been disrespectful of the crew. Quite the contrary. It's mindboggling the number of goodwill posts made on this thread. However, human error cannot be (yet) ruled out. Neither can anything else. That is where we stand. Until the black box is recovered, discussion will continue.

Even if human error were to be the outcome, who could possibly say anything bad about, or fault a crew who do the most difficult and dangerous of all aviation jobs, a job that reaps so many rich rewards by saving lives daily?

Simply put it does look increasingly like there is a strong connection with Blackrock, but neither mechanical, electrical nor human error can possibly diminish in anyone's mind how heroic the crew were out there at 1 am that night.

eatmyshorts

Reati wrote: »

Nope but people certainly are speculating it.

So from the general gist of your posts you suspect CFIT on some part of Blackrock?

At this point I'll say I am certain of contact with Blackrock.
Whether that was controlled or uncontrolled is still unclear.

Irish Steve

In the absence of sufficient information, the only clear information that is available at present is that the wreckage of R116 is on or in the vicinity of BlackRock Island.

What remains to be determined is the reason for the accident, and in simplest terms, there are 2 possible reasons, one is controlled flight into Terrain. Given the experience levels of the crew, and the level of redundant systems on the aircraft, I am finding it hard to accept this possibility

The other, equally possible, is that there was a significant and catastrophic mechanical or electrical failure of the aircraft which meant that the crew were unable to control the descent.

In view of the fact that there are still 3 members of the crew unaccounted for, I would ask that we all refrain from further speculation about the exact "how" until more specific information is provided by the AAIU team.

jetfiremuck

Notwithstanding anything said to date , a $20mil helicopter was lost, 4 crew dead, with 3 awaiting recovery. Cause was either due to mechanical failure or pilot error. Competence and professionalism is not the issue here.

Gaoth Laidir

I have checked my Sky Demon app and it doesn't show Black Rock or indeed the much larger Duvillaun More to its east. Both islands are completely missing on the chart. Would it be possible that they are also missing on the S92 nav charts? Not sure what suite they use (Garmin or Colllins?) and I'm sure it's highly unlikely that they would not be aware of the islands, however in 300-ft ceiling and 3-km visibility at night it's a different story. It should be pointed out that both islands are present on the 1:500,000 and 1:250,000 paper charts.

Sky Demon

OSI

Cianmcliam

I think if Black Rock were to be on those maps, it would be just a bit further west than the screeenshots cover.

Gaoth Laidir

Cianmcliam wrote: »

I think if Black Rock were to be on those maps, it would be just a bit further west than the screeenshots cover.

No, it would be in view. It's the tiny island on the left of the second image. It's missing in the first.

Here's a zoomed out view...

mickdw

Blackrock is shown there on the osi map.

Looking at the flight track shown on RTE, the helicopter turned slightly as if to avoid the rock when heading West then turned around and headed straight for it.
Is there anyway they could have confused it with blacksod?

Cianmcliam

Maybe it's the lack of a scale but it looked to me like it is further west going by Google Maps

Edit: yes, I see now! Thanks for the wider view.

ted1

eatmyshorts wrote: »

Respectfully, I disagree.
Every possibility should be a working theory until discounted. To do otherwise would only handicap an investigation.

Yes , but by qualified accident investigators not speculators on public forums

tricky D

Thread is temp locked until at least the morning unless something pertinent and worthy of further discussion arises.

Tenger

Just to clarify a couple of points;
As pointed out above, there is a lot of emotion evident in this thread. Moreso that in any incident that has taken place outside our personal experience. Hence the mods understand that people have close interest. The reported posts have indicated a level of unhappiness with the run of this thread. But please keep in mind that the mods are not here 24/7. Thus we cannot immediately edit/delete/warn/response to reports.

Then when Irish Steve did delete quite a large number of posts which were getting personal there was an accusation of over modding. Tricky D locked the thread for a similar reasons, as there was bickering in the absence of any new info. Hopefully we get some new information on the status of 116 and the still missing crew members today. Then we can continue to discuss the tragic incident calmly and sensitively, while understanding that we are not accident investigators.

The post by Irish Steve that has been challenged was an in the interest of steering the thread away from 'wild speculation' As with any aviation incident no possibility can be fully discounted. However this incident cannot be speculated along the same way as some posters initially did with "it was a bit dark. maybe they thought they were at Blacksod not Blackrock?" The statistically largest contributing factor in aviation incidents can never be discounted, and Im fully convinced the AAIU are looking at everything.

In addition some posters have channels of information that allow them info that may not yet be publicly available. There has also been quite a lot of posts with "I heard this from a mate...." type info. This throws rumours into a very sensitive situation.
Someone else asks the question about what impact our thread could have on the families of Rescue 116, the fact is that a quick search online can throw up many results and its easy for someone to click here and start reading. We quite recently saw schoolchildren posting on journal after a tradgey affected them and being discussed by ghouls on the Journal,ie. before the comments were closed.

Hopefully that clarifies things a little and most importantly hopefully the AAIU gives some more info later today

Atlantic Dawn

I see the Granuaile is heading straight to Galway and didn't visit the crash site.

AndyBoBandy

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I see the Granuaile is heading straight to Galway and didn't visit the crash site.

It's very windy here in Dublin, I can only imagine conditions are very poor over the west!

Discodog

Just want to say that I criticised some comments about discounting possibilities but I totally see where you & others were coming from. Some of the posts & wild theories are just ridiculous & demeaning to the crew.

It must be a concern that the wreckage may move in this dreadful weather - hopefully they got a buoy or something on it. Also it must be a worry that the wreckage found on the Island, that couldn't be reached, might be moved or blown away by the wind. Hopefully the AC helicopter, that landed on the Island was able to take photographs.

TallGlass

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I see the Granuaile is heading straight to Galway and didn't visit the crash site.

On the radio it mentioned it was picking up equipment and supplies before heading to site.

Airbus A320

What are the chances now that any of the missing crew will be found alive? RIP.

hawkelady

Airbus A320 wrote: »

What are the chances now that any of the missing crew will be found alive? RIP.

Nil. Unfortunately

cosanostra

A Temporary Restricted Area has been established with a radius of 10nm around Blackrock LH and Drones will be confiscated by Gardai Effective 17/03/2017 12:26 - 20/03/2017 17:00