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[RC] Pilot Error - k s swigart

David LeBlanc said:


That's what they always chalk them up to,
unless there's a clear mechanical failure.


I rest my case.  In the absence of a clear mechanical failure, the NTSB 
understands that all accidents are caused by pilot error.


I'm somewhat doubtful that another 150# or so
tipped the aircraft over the edge, especially
in that manner.


It is a brave man indeed who is willing to guess at a woman's weight...and in 
public!  

However (despite the joke between my vet and me, which David apparently didn't 
get) I also doubt that it was the extra "150# or so" that tipped the aircraft 
over the edge, and that it would have had trouble taking off in those 
conditions anyway.  The conditions for landing safely and the conditions for 
taking off safely are not necessarily the same conditions.  The fact that the 
helicopter successfully took off from a helipad in St. George where the flight 
originated (open parking lot, altitude 2,500') doesn't count for determining 
whether it could safely take off from a small clearing in the trees on the 
Kaibab Plateau.


Helicopters are just basically dangerous, even
under the best of conditions.


Yep, which is why you won't catch ME flying in one again absence a life 
threatening situation.  Give me a fixed wing aircraft any day, THOSE things are 
actually designed to fly.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  I have little doubt that the pilot who flew the helicopter that day was a 
competent and skilled pilot, and, in some ways, I probably owe my life to him, 
as when it became apparent that we were going down (I actually DO remember the 
helicopter accident even if I don't remember the horse accident that led up to 
the helicopter ride), he was able to bring it down in such a way that all of 
the passengers survived with "minor injuries" (another macabre joke from the 
NTSB, in case anybody is missing it), despite the fact that everybody who saw 
it (who knows anything) and everybody who read or heard about it after the fact 
said, "Nobody ever survives a helicopter crash like that."  Brent Johnson told 
me he was pretty sure that the only thing left for anybody to do was going to 
be to identify the body parts.  Could have knocked him over with a feather when 
they got to the crash site and actually saw signs of life, and not only signs 
of life but the pilot up walking around trying to pull the rest of us from the 
wreckage.

This doesn't change the fact that the cause of the accident at all was probably 
because the pilot chose to fly that helicopter in conditions that were too 
close to the edge of its mechanical capabilities.


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