From Tim's "oddest occurance at a race?" - Helicopter Crashes at Cleveland.

[devilmaster]

Pilot OK.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/news?slug=ap-helicoptercrash&prov=ap&type=lgns


Helicopter crashes at Cleveland auto race
By TOM WITHERS, AP Sports Writer
June 25, 2005

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A helicopter pilot walked away uninjured after crashing on an airport runway only a few hundred yards from thousands of racing fans attending the Grand Prix of Cleveland on Saturday.

The helicopter's back rotator blade was broken off and part its body was sheered away as the pilot brought it down at the westernmost end of Burke Lakefront Airport at 12:58 p.m., about a quarter of a mile from the nearest spectators. The crash coincided with a multicar accident on the first lap of a Champ Car developmental race.

Moments before, the helicopter had flown over crowded grandstands lining one of the main runways.

Airport officials said the pilot of the privately chartered helicopter experienced an equipment malfunction during flight but was able to maintain control. Airport commissioner Khalid Bahhur said it was too early to determine what went wrong.

The helicopter posed no threat to the airport or racing activities, officials said. No one else was in the helicopter, and there were no injuries on the ground.

Dave Geall, a photographer from Toronto, was eating lunch when he noticed the helicopter hovering overhead on the hazy, humid afternoon.

``I saw him come in and I wasn't sure if he was showing off or what,'' Geall said. ``Then he swung around twice and it came down on its back rotator first before it bounced back up onto its landing gear.''

The race has been held on the airport's runways and taxiways since 1982. Burke Airport is used primarily for smaller planes and news helicopters.

[edit]Didn't even think of HCN, giz.... thx. Title fixed.

[Gizmologist]

Double take... I first thought "What was Castroneves doing that CLEVELAND???"

Photo: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050625/483/ohjy10506251753

[pchall]

Wow. That is a serious case of "tail rotor failure"...

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050625/capt.ohjy10506251753.downed_helicopter_ohjy105.jpg ?x=380&y=217&sig=F97jykIxZfmDmkasKuCoUw--

[coolhand]

Wow. That is a serious case of "tail rotor failure"...

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050625/capt.ohjy10506251753.downed_helicopter_ohjy105.jpg ?x=380&y=217&sig=F97jykIxZfmDmkasKuCoUw--

"mechanical problem".........? :saywhat:

[pfc_m_drake]

"mechanical problem".........? :saywhat:
No...remember to tell them that it's an electrical problem :D

Seriously though, glad that everybody is ok.

[EDwardo]

Pilot error. What was he thinking, loosing his tail rotor? ;)

I can joke since no one was hurt!

[devilmaster]

i guess i read it differently. The witness said that he crashed tail first into the ground, then it bounced up and landed on the skids.....

Don't think the tail fell off in flight.....

[Insomniac]

i guess i read it differently. The witness said that he crashed tail first into the ground, then it bounced up and landed on the skids.....

Don't think the tail fell off in flight.....

Yes, that would be very bad. The pilot would lose stability and landing it safely would be nearly impossible (I'm not sure if anyone ever has landed a helicopter (after a tail rotor failure).

[nrc]

Saw the emergency vehicles down at the west end of the airport and wondered what it was all about. :saywhat:

[Napoleon]

Saw the emergency vehicles down at the west end of the airport and wondered what it was all about. :saywhat:

As I did. When I walked down to watch the start of the last race from the catch fence at turn one, two local tv stations had set up areas to
bbroadcast from and two newsguys are talking about what to say about the helecopter crash and all I could think was "WTF are these guys talking about. Are they on dope, or what".

[fourrunner]

I had read somewhere not to long ago (Maybe after the TWO copters went down in New York in the same week ) that Helicopters are the most dangerous aircraft to fly ... on a percentage basis, the crash total is much higher than other aircraft ... I'm guessing because anything that goes wrong with them at height, doesn't leave much option, since they don't have wings !

[Rob]

It's my understanding that they used to use low-flying helicopters to dry off wet racetracks, until one crashed. I read about this a while ago, so I don't remember where or when it was, but for some reason Michigan in the early '70s sounds right.

[Mr. Vengeance]

I had read somewhere not to long ago (Maybe after the TWO copters went down in New York in the same week ) that Helicopters are the most dangerous aircraft to fly ... on a percentage basis, the crash total is much higher than other aircraft ... I'm guessing because anything that goes wrong with them at height, doesn't leave much option, since they don't have wings !

They do have wings, they just happen to be rotating ;)

As long as the tail rotor and main rotor are spinning, it's possible to control a helicopter with a failed engine. (Called "autorotation").

Explained here (http://www.helis.com/howflies/autorot.php) if anyone's interested.

[devilmaster]

I know racing has lost a few drivers and team members to air crashes, but i'm kinda relieved and surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Consider that each race usually has 1 or 2 helos in race support, maybe a blimp, a few banner planes usually around the track....

[TorontoWorker]

It's called auto rotation and it is an emergency proceedure that if not done within a few seconds of loosing engine power will result in the helio coming straight down. You throw the clutch and open the collective and allow the energy that is in the main rotors to provide lift as you look for a safe landing area. The airframe is free to counter rotate as you start searching for the spot that looks the softest to make a controlled crash upon.

You put the nose down to gain airspeed while the spinning main rotors are providing what lift you have left. The downside is that you don't have very long before you lose energy in the rotors and the RPM of the rotors trails off to the point where your lift goes to ZERO. When this happens your rotors fold up above your head and you are toast. The key is to get the nose over asap and to get some forward airspeed = this delays the energy loss and adds some lift.

The second part is the flare. So you have an airsped of 100 knots... You can't land at this speed unless you time your flare just right. The tricky part is to time the flare and pull up just as you lose forward momentum.

You only get one shot at this. Sometimes you get a tail strike as you don't have too many options left as the nose has to come up to bleed off the airspeed. Sometimes pulling up also causes the main rotor (which has lost a lot of energy) to droop and impact the tail.

This is why you don't fly at high alt and why you always scan ahead for emergency landing sites and play that what if game - as in, what if my engine goes right now - where would I land...

Gearbox failures are the worst type of failure and why there are multi sensors for them so that you can get some form of early warning before crap happens. No one ignores warning alarms or lights in a helicopter and lives to get old and grey.

I'm willing to bet he had a failure so this is not a bad landing (if you can call it that!) if you can walk away from it...

[JT265]

i guess i read it differently. The witness said that he crashed tail first into the ground, then it bounced up and landed on the skids.....

Don't think the tail fell off in flight.....

That's what happened Steve. Rocket and Pocket Rocket and myself had gone back to the truck for some water (and air cool) :D

We both watched him fly over the grandstands but Rocket paid more attention to the thing lose control. And that's the truth. :p




:D

[TKGAngel]

We left the track on Friday without knowing about the helocopter, and got back to the hotel room, and the news of the crash was running across the CNN news ticker. I told my mother, and she looked at me like I was making the whole thing up, and continued to think so, as the announcement wasn't repeated until the 6pm news.

The whole thing did make me nervous during the pre-race helo flyover, especially considering how close the one came to the grandstands.

[Ankf00]

Yes, that would be very bad. The pilot would lose stability and landing it safely would be nearly impossible (I'm not sure if anyone ever has landed a helicopter (after a tail rotor failure).

but I hear it makes for a really fun amusement park ride :)

glad the pilot's ok though, and the helo's in only a couple of pieces instead of 23084380423 dispersed amongst the grandstands

[dando]

We left the track on Friday without knowing about the helocopter, and got back to the hotel room, and the news of the crash was running across the CNN news ticker. I told my mother, and she looked at me like I was making the whole thing up, and continued to think so, as the announcement wasn't repeated until the 6pm news.

The whole thing did make me nervous during the pre-race helo flyover, especially considering how close the one came to the grandstands.
I had no idea until I arrived home Sun PM when I caught this thread. :eek:

I arrived just a few minutes after it happened. Glad it ended well.

-Kevin

[Andrew Longman]

I heard some unusual supersonic rotor rap which turned me around and got my attention . I watched him dive over the field and I simply thought he was flying aggressively. I even though that was not a great idea over a grandstand. I did not follow him all the way to the ground and turn my attention back to the track. That night when I got to my cousin's, he told me the chopper actually crashed.

[Lizzerd]

I heard some unusual supersonic rotor rap which turned me around and got my attention . I watched him dive over the field and I simply thought he was flying aggressively. I even though that was not a great idea over a grandstand. I did not follow him all the way to the ground and turn my attention back to the track. That night when I got to my cousin's, he told me the chopper actually crashed.

That's exactly what I saw/remember...

[Steve99]

The whole thing did make me nervous during the pre-race helo flyover, especially considering how close the one came to the grandstands.
What was the helo flyover anyhow. I saw some long shots on RD, but couldn't tell what they were.

[Anteater]

My husband and I were unaware of the crash when it happened. After the CCIC Fan Forum, we decided to take a break from the heat and stay in the Champions Club tent for the start of the Atlantic race, since they had a big-screen TV there for race-viewing. There was no sound feed, though, so we couldn't figure out why they kept showing a helicopter instead of the race, and we went to our grandstand seats instead.

Awhile later, I went to the control-tower building with a friend from Yokohama Tire, and we overheard people talking about the helicopter crash. We returned to the transporter, and realized that we had an excellent view of the broken heli and the recovery process. :eek: That sure could have been a major disaster!

[Insomniac]

but I hear it makes for a really fun amusement park ride :)

glad the pilot's ok though, and the helo's in only a couple of pieces instead of 23084380423 dispersed amongst the grandstands

You would think there would be some rules about helicopters over and flying towards grandstands. Kind of like air shows.