CG Chopper Crashes in Arctic

[JK]

Sad news.
The Amundson has lost her chopper in the western Arctic.
There is no further official information available.

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2 ... n-Arctic/1

Lost are :
pilot Daniel Dubé; Klaus Hochheima, a scientist working with the University of Manitoba and Marc Thibault, who commanded the CCGS Amundsen.

My sympathy to the family and friends of the lost. I am sure it is grim on the vessel today.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/sto ... crash.html

[JFC]

What a terrible, terrible accident.

My heart goes out to the families of these marine professionals that perished.

Many of us past and present (Canadian Coast Guard) have been there many, many times in helicopters on board our icebreakers. The choppers were always the safest of safe. The pilots and mechanics are top drawer and are our professional colleagues on board ship and friends for life.

.......you just never know when you are going to check out.

[The Dieselduck]

JK, do you have further details you can share on the accident. Did they find the helicopter, recover it for analysis? Where was the crew found?

Whats happening investigation wise. TC, CCG or TSB ?

[JK]

They were in McClure Straits just as you enter the Beaufort by the looks of it, which is pretty high up.
The ship found the 3 bodies, they were out of the chopper, whether it broke up in a crash or landed intact I don't know.
These are fairly small choppers and they would have been in Arctic gear or Mustang suits which are bulky, so it would have been not easy to get out. The pontoons must have been damaged,didn't inflate or the pilot didn't have opportunity to inflate them-I don't know how they activate.
The chopper sank in over 300m of water, so the odds of finding out what actually happened is pretty small. They don't carry a recorder, even if it had been recoverable. There is no information whether they died of hypothermia or of injuries.
The investigation is going to be done by TSB. I am not sure if TC Air can get involved. I'm not sure if they manage the choppers for CCG, the pilots are TC employees or both, but somehow they are involved.
I can't even imagine how grim it is on the ship. The 'breaker crews sail together for years and they would all know each other well.

I can only speculate. There are so many ways you could have an accident up there with a chopper. Snow squalls. Aviation fuel in the cold, Mechanical, who knows...but I can tell you the helicopter engineers take excellent care of the choppers.

[JK]

I checked about the pontoons, apparently they keep the chopper afloat temporarily. It must have been enough for them to get out as they died of hypothermia in the water.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/coa ... -1.1858263

[JollyJack]

That's worrying. Apparently, all the guys were wearing survival suits and two died of hypothermia. I thought that was what survival suits were supposed to prevent.

[JK]

I'm thinking Mustang suits. I can't see a survival suit in those choppers.

[The Dieselduck]

Thanks for the details. So the chopper landed - try to land in open water, they most likely got out on "their own" as opposed to maybe being ejected, spilled out, where they were recovered. How long before the ship found them? Where they in a search and rescue operation, or did they know exactly where they were located? Lawyer Darren Williams here on the west coast has been an advocate of raising the survival suits standards, as he lost family in similar circumstance, where the survival equipment was suppose to work, but I believe contributed to their deaths.

Yes, I can only imagine losing such a presence on a ship would be pretty traumatizing to the rest of the crew.

I was at the bank the other day and got a new fifty, with the Amundsen on the back, I thought it was a fitting recognition of the work being done by CCG and Science, just wish they had better equipment.

[JK]

I have read anywhere from an hour to a couple of hours. There is an active signal to the ships bridge that stopped when the chopper went down. The ship would respond to that loss. Now whether the signal stopped when the chopper sank is the question and how long it stayed afloat. I just don't know, I am going by the new articles and we all know how badly they are written.

[JK]

Looks like they found the chopper. Quite frankly, given the depth of water it is amazing. The Amundson has a moonpool, so they lowered the ROV there and one of the other 'breakers is keeping the pressure off of them so they can stay on station.

[JK]

They expect to recover the wreck depending on weather and ice.
The tail boom is broken off.

Screen Grabs from CBC

[The Dieselduck]

I this will have tremendous implication in the way Coast Guard conducts operations in cold weather - which is pretty much the majority of the work. Obviously there will need to be analysis of the PPE (cold weather protection) and its suitability to the missions.

I am happy to see the chopper, and that they are recovering it. I think its important to figure out what happen, despite the enormous logistical challenges. This is an accident, this should not happen, and they should find out why it happen, to learn from it and change the risk profile. Something they should have done with the Queen of the North, instead of turning that into a criminalization fiasco.

My impressions are that the chopper crashed into the water, judging from the damage to the front. And I don't see the pontoons being activated, not that I know what they would look like, but one would assume there would be some signs of them on the skids.

[JK]

It is at 400m depth and all of the windshields are gone. They may not have survived the descent to the bottom. It looks like the blades are there under the body and you'd think they would not be in a crash.
It will be wait and see what TSB says.

Here is a chopper on their deck, can't say if it is the same one. You can see the uninflated pontoons.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihade/6330459360/

[JK]

The retrieved chopper on the deck of the Henry Larsen

http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/a ... e_to_reso/