Ever notice, Helicopter and Holy S#it, both start with an H?

[fholbert]

For some reason I think a tag line was the cause.

Back to base to clean our pants.

Assume the white smoke is the flotation bags deploying? Who was quick enough in that s#it storm to deploy the bags?

Date:	06-JUL-2022
Time:
Type:	Eurocopter AS 350B3 Ecureuil
Owner/operator:	Mont Blanc Hélicoptères Bretagne
Registration:
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants:
Other fatalities:	0
Aircraft damage:	Unknown
Location:	La Vieille lighthouse, Finistère, Bretagne - France
Phase:	Manoeuvring (airshow, firefighting, ag.ops.)
Nature:	Calibration/Inspection
Departure airport:
Destination airport:

Narrative:
The helicopter avoided a crash at the Vieille lighthouse, off the Pointe du Raz, during a maintenance operation of the Lighthouses and Beacons staff.
The pilot recovered the aircraft a few meters from the surface of the sea, in a maneuver that caused the release of a large cloud of smoke.
Emergency buoyancy has been triggered.
The reason of the incident is unknown for the moment.
A person on the lighthouse was injured.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

@MikeD Alright my resident expert good sir, what happened to this flying death machine?

All I see is a helicopter flying straight to nosing right over and doing what helicopters REALLY want to do: Kill its pilot.

 

[knot4u]

The quality of the video isn't great but it certainly looks like the's a puff of something before everything gets cattywampus, if I had to make a very uneducated guess it would be that helicopter took out a wire/cable attached to the lighthouse with its skids. I think the smoke afterwards was a turbine engine not designed for those sorts of negative Gs.

 

[NovemberEcho]

Per French sources, the helicopter was carrying a sling load for delivery to the light house when a cable snapped or was accidentally released. That was the little puff.

 

[MikeD]

@MikeD Alright my resident expert good sir, what happened to this flying death machine?

All I see is a helicopter flying straight to nosing right over and doing what helicopters REALLY want to do: Kill its pilot.

Appears to have snagged a guy wire of some sort while in forward flight, either with skids or with a residual sling cable. The white smoke appears to be engine oil tossed into the overflow tubes and into the exhaust and burning off, possibly from negative Gs. The floatation bags were activated, which is a simple lift-guard and button push by the thumb right there on the cyclic stick, so thats easy to do. If this was a wire snagged, then having survived that is nothing short of a miracle.

 

[NovemberEcho]

Appears to have snagged a guy wire of some sort while in forward flight, either with skids or with a residual sling cable. The white smoke appears to be engine oil tossed into the overflow tubes and into the exhaust and burning off, possibly from negative Gs. The floatation bags were activated, which is a simple lift-guard and button push by the thumb right there on the cyclic stick, so thats easy to do. If this was a wire snagged, then having survived that is nothing short of a miracle.

not a wire snag per French media. One of 3 cables for a sling load let go, either snapped or accidental release

 

[MikeD]

not a wire snag per French media. One of 3 cables for a sling load let go, either snapped or accidental release

That would be odd. He’s already in forward flight, not seeing a load. Even so, if a cable parted on a stable load, it wouldn’t necessarily nose the helo over like that, it would jerk the helo straight down, or at some level downward vector.