‘Copter not airworthy
PA Wellington A helicopter which crashed, seriously injuring two persons on a venison recovery flight, did not have a valid airworthiness certificate. Nor had it been maintained in accordance with an approved Civil ’ Aviation maintenance schedule. The Hughes 369 helicopter crashed near the small Otago, township .of Herbert in June, last year. The pilot, aged 29, and one of the two passengers were seriously hurt. A Ministry of Transport air accident brief said the helicopter’s airworthiness certificate had expired 10 days before the crash. This had invalidated the helicopter’s approved maintenance release. Civil Aviation airworthiness surveillance did not detect the omissions. Air crash investigators found that the pilot had noticed a tail rotor vibration on the day before the crash. But he did not think it warranted engineering attention. The helicopter crashed 15 minutes after taking off from Glencoe station with the pi-
lot, two passengers, and a hunting dog on hoard. Moments before the crash the rotor vibration stopped. The helicopter began to shake violently, there was a loud bang, and the aircraft began to rotate to the right. The pilot stopped the rotation, but the helicopter then spiralled into tall trees. Investigators said the helicopter’s engine had continued to run after the impact of the crash. There was no evidence of any pre-crash defect or failure. They said the transmission housing failed, allowing the output shaft with the tail rotor blades to separate from the helicopter. Scientific tests had found fatigue cracking in the transmission housing. The cracking . extended over 85 per cent of the fracture surface before the final failure. The accident brief recommended that similar gearbox housings should be subjected to dye penetrant crack detection by qualified people. “The remarkable length of cracking before ultimate failure indicates that similar defects should readily be identified using the dye penetrant technique,” the brief said.
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Press, 31 March 1981, Page 7
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309‘Copter not airworthy Press, 31 March 1981, Page 7
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