Texting While Flying

I_Money

I_Money

Moderator
Looks like the medical helicopter pilot who crash in MO after running out of fuel was also having a conversation via text just before the accident. What is so frustrating is these helicopter accidents seem so preventable with the utilization of slightly more gray matter.
 
Not good. I agree that these seem to be preventable and make it worse for the industry as a whole..

P.S. not sure it matters but who was he texting? Dispatch?
 
This falls along the lines I heard from a jumpseater we had from a regional carrier. They said it was big news going around their company that an FO had posted to facebook that they were at 400' and turning after takeoff.

Just turn them off, it is not worth it.
 
TowJoe said:
This falls along the lines I heard from a jumpseater we had from a regional carrier. They said it was big news going around their company that an FO had posted to facebook that they were at 400' and turning after takeoff.

Just turn them off, it is not worth it.
Click to expand...

LMAO I can totally see down my news feed:
"V1..."15 seconds ago
"Rotate"13 seconds ago
"Gear up" 8 seconds ago
"400 feet turning left 210 degrees" Just now
 
FWIW, the NTSB can and will subpoena all of your device records (email, web, SMS) if you are ever involved in something they investigate.

Food for thought. All that stuff comes with a time stamp.

Richman
 
Richman said:
FWIW, the NTSB can and will subpoena all of your device records (email, web, SMS) if you are ever involved in something they investigate.

Food for thought. All that stuff comes with a time stamp.

Richman
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And there was me thinking that the :sarcasm: tag would have been overkill.

Oh well.
 
I'm still waiting for the 'no phone' movement. Eventually being 'that guy' with his head constantly glued to phone will be branded a loser by popular culture. Believe it or not, the cellphone will be as dorky as the Rubik's cube someday.
 
I'm not buying that texting was a contributing factor to the crash. The last text message sent or received was 11 minutes before the crash, and the pilot knew he was critically low on fuel during the repositioning leg to pick up the patient.

He didn't check fuel levels before departing on that first leg, and it's hard to admit to the CP that you make a mistake like that. But texting didn't have a material effect on the outcome.
 
Its the only time I have to make posts on the inter web.

But we definitely use it for company communication and wx updates. Even had a FAA enroute an had the webcams up on the phone.. he though that was a damm fine use of technology.
 
tomokc said:
I'm not buying that texting was a contributing factor to the crash. The last text message sent or received was 11 minutes before the crash, and the pilot knew he was critically low on fuel during the repositioning leg to pick up the patient.

He didn't check fuel levels before departing on that first leg, and it's hard to admit to the CP that you make a mistake like that. But texting didn't have a material effect on the outcome.
Click to expand...

You make a valid point but I can't entirely agree with you.

It's not a stretch to surmise that his "head wasn't in the game" (so to speak) if he was texting while FLYING, with a PATIENT, having full knowledge that he was CRITIALLY low on fuel.
I haven't seen the report to which you and @I Money refer but this indicates to me a pretty lackadaisical attitude. I'm not taking at shot at the pilot or his entire career. However, for this flight, it seems pretty clear he let the fuel situation slip lower on the priority list than he should have.
 
Probable Cause

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable causes of this accident were the pilot's failure to confirm that the helicopter had adequate fuel onboard to complete the mission before making the first departure, his improper decision to continue the mission and make a second departure after he became aware of a critically low fuel level, and his failure to successfully enter an autorotation when the engine lost power due to fuel exhaustion. Contributing to the accident were (1) the pilot's distracted attention due to personal texting during safety-critical ground and flight operations, (2) his degraded performance due to fatigue, (3) the operator's lack of a policy requiring that an operational control center specialist be notified of abnormal fuel situations, and (4) the lack of practice representative of an actual engine failure at cruise airspeed in the pilot's autorotation training in the accident make and model helicopter.

http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2013/mosby_mo/Abstract_Mosby_MO.pdf
 
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