Earlier today an EC225 helicopter crashed in Norway and it appears that all were lost. There are reports that the main blades came off in flight.
Why am I posting this here. It's all in the subject of the thread and this screen grab from pprune.
What a strange conclusion to leap to when helicopters crash quite regularly because they're just inherently prone to suffering mechanical failures.
Par for the course these days though isn't it.
just wow! that's one hell of a leap.
If a drone or big bird caused the main rotor blades to detach then I'd suggest that the main rotor was not airworthy in the first place.
There has been an ongoing issues with the 225 for quite some time. They were grounded for well over a year with gearbox issues.
2 years ago there was a lengthy campaign by offshore workers wanting them removed from service because of the number that have come down in the recent past.
My heart goes out to the families.
Quote from: luvbus on April 29, 2016, 03:59:07 PM
There has been an ongoing issues with the 225 for quite some time. They were grounded for well over a year with gearbox issues.
2 years ago there was a lengthy campaign by offshore workers wanting them removed from service because of the number that have come down in the recent past.
My heart goes out to the families.
Just for the record, none were grounded. This is a widely believed misrepresentation of the truth due to media dumbing down. They were simply not allowed to operate passenger flights in hazardous environments. For the UK that meant no passenger flights to the North Sea other than emergency missions. EC225s continued to be flown in other environments.
Additionally the aircraft type which suffered complete loss of the main rotor some years ago was an AS332L2 - related to a 225 but not the same.
My brother works on the rigs off Scotland and in Nigeria - he says by far the scariest part of the job is the helicopter trips because you're basically screwed if it goes in and you're usually a long way off shore.
Can't say I'd enjoy it much myself tbh.
RIP to these folks.
Quote from: electrotor on April 29, 2016, 04:05:38 PM
They were simply not allowed to operate passenger flights in hazardous environments. For the UK that meant no passenger flights to the North Sea other than emergency missions.
As far as offshore operations were concerned they were grounded which pretty much covers the entire 225 fleet......
You start adding the 332 ditchings too and the record does not look pretty at all for the Puma and its variants in recent years.
Quote from: luvbus on April 29, 2016, 05:08:59 PM
As far as offshore operations were concerned they were grounded which pretty much covers the entire 225 fleet......
You start adding the 332 ditchings too and the record does not look pretty at all for the Puma and its variants in recent years.
There is a significant difference between grounding an aircraft and not flying it in certain environments.
Also there are very significant differences between the various models of Super Puma.
This always happens when the media publishes half truths.