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August 13, 2005
Copterline crash update
Helsinki's newspaper has an excellent update on the Copterline crash in the Gulf of Finland, which I discussed here. Mechanical defects seem to be a leading possible cause of the crash, though Copterline management ruled-out mechanical problems very early on and with no evidence to support such a view. The paper published this acccount of a Copterline incident with blade problems:
According to information received by Helsingin Sanomat, the blades overheated some time ago, as the pilot was taking off. The turbine exhaust gases heated up the blades to such an extent that the rotor-blades began to shake on ascent.The pilot had aborted the take-off and returned safely to the ground. The blade or blades were replaced.
UPDATE 8/15: This helicopter is the same one I took last year. (One can match the tail numbers.
In a ironic twist, one of the pilots killed in the recent crash was active in the rescue from the 1994 sinking of the M/V Estonia. The Estonia ferry was a bit more than half as long as the Titanic and sank within 15 minutes in a fierce Baltic Sea storm. Of 989 people on board, 858 died. The immediate cause was a giant door leading to the car deck that ripped open and fell off. Ferry operators were driving the ship too hard into the massive oncoming waves and the underengineered door came loose.
The Atlantic last year produced a fabulous account of the Estonia sinking, based on several interviews with survivors, including some who were among the last people to escape successfully. For non-Atlantic subscribers, here is the poor man's version.
The Estonia sinking shouldn't be confused with the similar accident in Zeebrugge, Belgium. There, the operator of the bow door fell asleep and forgot to close it before departure. The ferry left dock and sank 90 seconds later, killing 193 in water not even deep enough to submerge the vessel.
Posted by adrianjo at August 13, 2005 09:48 AM
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