hard landing Archives - Fire Aviation

Investigation report on May 2023 hard landing in Alberta

Kelly Andersson30. November 2023HelicoptersAlberta, Edson airport, hard landingLeave a comment

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has wrapped up its investigation into a hard landing on May 4 of an Airbus Helicopters AS350 B2. A Global News report back in May said the pilot walked away with minor injuries after he made a hard landing at the Edson Airport in western Alberta.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said officers were called just after 8 p.m. to the airport, about 180 kilometres west of Edmonton in Yellowhead County. The helicopter was helping fight wildfires; forestry officials also responded to the airport, along with emergency crews. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada was notified and planned to investigate.

The helicopter, registered to Range Helicopters Inc., was approaching the Edson Airport from a firefighting staging area to the east, according to a report by CTV News out of Edmonton.

According to the TSB report, as the helicopter approached from the east, another aircraft was approaching from the west. The pilot decided to change his typical route to the airport and approached from downwind and to the north of the runway. As the pilot neared the airport and reduced speed, he noticed a pair of airtankers at the fire base. Not wanting to overfly them, he slowed down even more, and the helicopter began an uncontrolled descent.

“The pilot applied collective to reduce the rate of descent; however, the rate of descent increased,” the report said. “This scenario is consistent with a vortex ring state (VRS).”

A VRS, sometimes called “settling with power” in the U.S., is a dangerous aerodynamic condition that can occur in helicopter flight when a vortex ring system engulfs the rotor and causes loss of lift. The helicopter hit the ground hard and flipped quickly onto its starboard side.

The pilot, who walked away with just minor injuries, held a commercial license and was up-to-date, including training for VRS.

In the seven days leading up to the incident, he had worked a total of 85.5 duty hours including 46.6 flight hours, but investigators do not believe that fatigue was a factor.

The report highlights the importance of approach planning and power management, especially when approaching a landing site from downwind. “It is critical that helicopter pilots remain aware of and avoid flight conditions that can cause VRS to develop,” it said. “Any potential time saved by attempting a downwind approach must be carefully weighed against the risk that it may represent.”

Croman S-61A helicopter experiences hard landing

Bill Gabbert24. August 201523. February 2022Helicopterscrash, Croman, hard landing, S-61

S-61A hard landing Croman — File photo of a Croman helicopter taken in 2014. This is not the helicopter that experienced the hard landing August 19, 2015. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

At approximately 7:15 p.m. PT on August 19, a Croman S-61A helicopter working on the Eldorado Fire eight miles southeast of Unity, Oregon experienced a hard landing. The incident occurred on the west portion of the fire near King Creek in the vicinity of a medical unit serving firefighters on the line.

According to the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF), two persons were on board. When the helicopter came to rest, both exited the helicopter and signaled that they were unhurt by waving to the medical unit. While no significant injuries were apparent, both individuals were transported by ambulance to St. Alphonsus Ontario Medical Center for further evaluation.

Below is an excerpt from an article in the Baker City Herald:

…Gary Wiltrout, 67, of Boise, said he and his co-pilot Scott Talada, 65, of Baker City, had been flying for about six hours on Wednesday dumping water on the Eldorado fire when the engine failure occurred about 7:15 p.m.
They were taking water from a pond known as Murphy’s dip, near Highway 26 leaving Unity. Wiltrout said that up to that point, there was no indication there was anything wrong with the helicopter.“We had just picked up a bucket of water, then the engine rpm changed and we started losing altitude,” Wiltrout said. “I got rid of the water right away.”
Then, they lost an engine.
“I tried to make it out with one engine,” Wiltrout said.

The FAA reports there was “substantial damage” to the aircraft.

The helicopter has a Call When Needed contract with the U.S. Forest Service, but at the time of the accident it was working under the operational control of the ODF on one of their fires.

MAFFS air tanker experiences a hard landing

Bill Gabbert17. August 201419. August 2014Fixed wingaccident, C-130, crash, hard landing, MAFFS, MAFFS 3, Utah6 Comments

MAFFS 3 hard landing — The MAFFS 3 air tanker experienced a hard landing at Hill Air Force Base on August 17. There were no injuries. Photo supplied by the Air Force, originally from Fox 13.

One of the military Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) C-130 air tankers experienced a hard landing Sunday. The crew detected a potential malfunction with the nose landing gear and executed an emergency landing at Hill Air Force Base near Ogden, Utah. Upon landing at 2:53 MDT, there was a small fire and the aircraft, designated as MAFFS 3, sustained damage, but there were no injuries, according to the United States Northern Command.

The Fox 13 TV station in Salt Lake City reported that the air tanker was scheduled to “refuel and resupply” at Ogden when the problem was first detected.

Greg Brubaker sent us the photo below. He said he noticed the aircraft was flying in the area for over an hour and he observed that the nose gear was not visible.

MAFFS 3 nose gear problem — MAFFS 3 circling in the Ogden area before it landed with a nose gear problem. Photo by Greg Brubaker.

In the photo, the doors that cover the nose gear appear to be partially, but not fully open. Click on the photo to see a larger version.

On July 19, two MAFFS C-130s, MAFFS 1 and 3, from the 153rd Airlift Wing of the Wyoming Air National Guard in Cheyenne were activated to assist with the firefighting effort and have been deployed ever since, working out of Boise and other bases while rotating fresh crews in and out.

There have been three other hard landing incidents involving privately owned contract air tankers with failed landing gear or brakes since 2010. No injuries were reported in these accidents:

2010, June 26: Neptune’s Tanker 44, a P2V, experienced a hydraulic failure upon landing, had no brakes, and went off the runway at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (JeffCo) in Colorado.
2012, June 3: One of the main landing gears did not lower and lock on Minden’s Tanker 55, a P2V. The aircraft landed at Minden, Nevada and slid off the runway.
2014, June 15: Minden’s Tanker 48, a P2V, experienced a hydraulic failure, resulting in the nose gear collapsing while it landed at Fresno, California.

On July 1, 2012 a MAFFS C-130 air tanker, MAFFS #7 operated by the North Carolina National Guard crashed. The accident occurred July 1, 2012 as the aircraft was attempting to drop retardant on the White Draw Fire near Edgemont, South Dakota. There were four fatalities.

MAFFS at Helena — File photo of MAFFS 1 and 3 at Helena Regional Airport August 3, 2014. Photo by Jeff Wadekamper.