Need a help in helicopter crash accident investigation (to..

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Hi,

THIS IS TOP URGENT!..

I have a movie with a helicopter accident. The helicopter crew claims
that the reason of the accident was a damage on the tail rotor blade.
My brother was a copilot in crew of that helicopter and I don't have
any reasons to don't believe him and his colleagues. But investigators
claim that it was basically overloading and helicopter was crashed by
this reason.

There were some eye-witnesses that saw when helicopter was in hovering
one piece of the tail rotor blade was broke away. After that the crew
worked only for saving lives of passengers and saving machine. But
after questioning by investigators eye-witnesses ceased to remember
this important detail.

Would you help me and the crew of that helicopter?

The tail rotor has 8 rounds per second and the movie has 30 frames per
second. The blades of tail rotor blades are invisible on the movie.

1. Is it possible to see blades enough to make a decision on the exact
reason of damage like on this http://www.helis.com/movies/bige005.mpg
movie?
2. Is there any other technique which can be helpful to solve this
problem or make blades visible using exist movie?

Sincerely,
Rustam Bogubaev

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

you can find mentioned movie on
http://www.bookinturkey.com/rustam/mi8mtv-ex902.wmv .

P.S. : This movie was downloaded from yahoo news web site and couldn't
be used for commercial purposes.

best regards,
rustam bogubaev

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Looked to me that they never reached translational lift and that the
helicopter settled shortly after departing ground effect. This is normally
caused by trying to take off over or near gross weight and immediately
leaving ground effect. Notice that the helicopter is on a hill, then takes
off over the edge without a great deal of forward airspeed. A pinnacle
takeoff, or one from an offshore oil platform is the same. It is altitude
over airspeed. You use the altitude to nose over and gain the necessary
airspeed. If you have a high gross weight and no power margin, as soon as
you leave the "ground cushion" the helicopter settles if the airspeed does
not reach enough for translational lift to occur.

Translational lift is the aerodynamic term used when the helicopter goes
from hovering flight into forward flight. The air flow is different through
the rotor system. It was hard to tell where the relative wind was from but
I'd guess that any experienced crew would have taken off into the wind
rather than downwind. The helicopter's rotorwash masked the wind direction
from the video. The flags were blown around by the helicopters rotorwash so
it was hard to tell from the video alone.

In this case, the altitude (MSL altitude above measured sea level of the
glacier) combined with the gross weight of the helicopter cannot be ruled
out. They struck the tail rotor as they settled into the ice. If the tail
rotor had lost a blade on takeoff, the helicopter would have begun spinning
immediately after takeoff. It did not, so I would assume that the tail
rotor was intact all the way to impact with the ice. A loss of even one
tail rotor blade at a hover would have been a tremendous challenge for the
crew as a helicopter is designed to operate with all the blades intact. It
would also have been obvious on the video.

Bottom line IMHO: Crews make mistakes. It happens all the time in the
helicopter industry.

rqo (yes...I do fly helicopters and have over 10,000 hours in them, with no
accidents)

<rustam.bogubaev@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1125122002.734368.216010@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> THIS IS TOP URGENT!..
>
> I have a movie with a helicopter accident. The helicopter crew claims
> that the reason of the accident was a damage on the tail rotor blade.
> My brother was a copilot in crew of that helicopter and I don't have
> any reasons to don't believe him and his colleagues. But investigators
> claim that it was basically overloading and helicopter was crashed by
> this reason.
>
> There were some eye-witnesses that saw when helicopter was in hovering
> one piece of the tail rotor blade was broke away. After that the crew
> worked only for saving lives of passengers and saving machine. But
> after questioning by investigators eye-witnesses ceased to remember
> this important detail.
>
> Would you help me and the crew of that helicopter?
>
> The tail rotor has 8 rounds per second and the movie has 30 frames per
> second. The blades of tail rotor blades are invisible on the movie.
>
> 1. Is it possible to see blades enough to make a decision on the exact
> reason of damage like on this http://www.helis.com/movies/bige005.mpg
> movie?
> 2. Is there any other technique which can be helpful to solve this
> problem or make blades visible using exist movie?
>
> Sincerely,
> Rustam Bogubaev
>

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

8:24 a.m. August 23, 2005

"The crash happened shortly after takeoff from a base camp near Mount
Pobeda, or Victory Peak, in the extreme east of the Central Asian nation,
near the Chinese border. The helicopter was carrying 22 people, including 14
Germans and a French photographer, according to witnesses. A German
expedition testing high-altitude equipment had chartered the aircraft.
"The instant the helicopter took off, the luggage slid in toward the back,"
said Raabe, the expedition's doctor. "Then the helicopter fell on the right
side where I was sitting, so I was buried under all the luggage and I
scrambled my way out of there."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

After reading different accounts of how the helicopter was loaded prior to
takeoff, including the fact that the pilots reportedly "unloaded" some
passengers due to the weight, I assumed it was over or near gross weight.
The other thing to consider is the altitude. 3900m is 12795.28 feet.
Helicopters don't exactly perform like they are at sea level when the yare
at that altitude. That combined with the gross weight puts the aircraft's
performance in doubt.

Overloaded? Maybe for the conditions.

<rustam.bogubaev@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1126268426.104873.130600@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> the aircraft was not overloaded. see below for that days flight
> details:
>
> helicopter : MI-8MTV
> altitude : 3900m asl
> air temperature : +5C
> wind speed : 4m/s (upwing takeoff)
> take-off mass :
> * 16pax - 10444kg
> * 11pax - 10069kg (after made 5 passengers get out/disembark)
>
> so let me know how you decided that helicopter was overloaded.
>
> - rustam
>