Chris Cline dies in helicopter crash

[Cujet]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/05/us/billionaire-chris-cline-dies-bahamas/index.html

Quote:


"West Virginia coal billionaire and philanthropist Chris Cline died in a helicopter crash near the Bahamas on Thursday,
Seven people are believed dead, the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a statement Friday.
Police said a helicopter took off from Big Grand Cay around 2 a.m. Thursday and was reported missing around 2:50 p.m. when it didn't arrive in Fort Lauderdale, its intended destination.
Police officers and residents of Grand Cay discovered the aircraft overturned in 16 feet of water about two miles off Grand Cay in the Abacos and recovered the bodies of four females and three males, police said.

Cline's daughter was one of the people on the aircraft. "


Unfortunately, the pilot was the guy in the hangar next door to me at North County airport, in Jupiter, FL. He was a super nice guy and had a great little business at the airport. While I was not close friends with him, we would talk when we saw each other at the airport. He was quite a good pilot, instructor and businessman.

Very sad.

 

[IndyFan]

Sad to hear this. I'll be putting their families in my prayers.

 

[john_pifer]

Dang. Heard this on Fox News Channel a little while ago.

Sorry to hear that the pilot lost his life, and that he was someone you knew. I know aviation is a small world.

Any theories?

 

[john_pifer]

Google Maps said it's 136 miles from that island to Ft. Lauderdale. Doesn't seem like an excessively long helicopter flight, but I don't know that much about helicopters.

Cujet, do you know what model of helicopter this was?

 

[IndyFan]

Knowing nothing at all, the first thing I'd wonder about is weather.

 

[SatinSilver]

I read where it was an Agusta Westland AW139 like the one pictured below.

 

[john_pifer]

Hmm...

Reading the specs on Wiki, it sounds like a very safe and nice aircraft. Twin PT6C engines, FADEC-controlled, with the ability to "automatically handle a single-engine failure without noticeable deviation", glass cockpit, and if there were only 7 people aboard, it would have been well below capacity.

Range is listed at 600+ miles, and, with flight distance from that island to Ft. Lauderdale, at the cruise speed listed at 190 mph, it should have been an easy flight of <1 hr.

 

[Cujet]

Wow, the pictures of the heli underwater look like it hit the water hard. Rotor blades gone, tail gone, radome gone, landing gear out.

 

[Cujet]

I don't have any input from the folks at Cloud 9 helicopters. I'm sure it's coming.

Good decision making is critical for aviation success. It always has been, as LUCK is not a strategy. A 2AM departure from an island nation, in a helicopter, in a direction that immediately takes the flight over water, without a flight plan and without communication is a mission that carries significant risk. Add in any unforeseen problem (of any type) and the chance at survival drops to near nothing.

Geoff was a very capable helicopter pilot, but like most of us, he probably felt pressure to complete the mission.

I hope to learn from this and I don't mind saying that I've seen enough sadness at our airports to really put the brakes on my enthusiasm. I had made my mind up that if my friend and ex co-worker was onboard (killed in this crash) , I was going to resign and retire. I've lost too many friends recently. One was flying a Wheeler Express that may have broken up in flight. The sadness at the field (F45) is palpable, and as always will remain a factor for a long time to come. Unfortunately as time passes, the surviving people hurt by such incidents tend to no longer show up at the airport, leading to a general forgetting/ignorance of the situation. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don't have any answers.

 

[Exhaustgases]

And of course they will never find out how it happened.

 

[Astro14]

2AM. Dark. Over water.

Until you've flown over the ocean at night, you have no idea how truly dark it is. There is no horizon. Vertigo is common. Up is down. Down is up.

VFR Pilots often crash over water at night. JFK jr. for example.

Most helicopter pilots are not instrument rated, and even if they are, the transition to utter and complete featureless darkness is often more than even IFR-rated pilots can handle.

I am not impugning your friend, or trying to diminish your loss, but this scenario is most likely explained by a loss of control due to disorientation.

 

[RooflessVW]

Originally Posted by Cujet
Wow, the pictures of the heli underwater look like it hit the water hard. Rotor blades gone, tail gone, radome gone, landing gear out.

No such thing as a gentle crash in a helicopter, least of all into water. As soon as it hits the water, everything stops violently.

Sorry for your loss.

 

[mbacfp]

Sorry for your loss. When I was younger I worked at an aviation insurance company and got to know a lot of pilots. I was also a student pilot at the time. I knew a guy who ended up selling his flight school and started selling Cessna Caravans. He was flying with a commercial rated pilot (I believe from Signature - which was a training school) to sales demos in California. On the way back from a demo they flew into the side of a mountain. I will always remember this accident and it was ultimately ruled pilot error. Here is the NTSB report if one is interested. Very sad when these things happen.

 

[Cujet]

I'm going to guess mechanical failure. These 2 pilots were exceptionally qualified and experienced.

As I understand it, Cline's daughter had acute alcohol poisoning. Hence the pressure to get her to a US hospital.

We are hearing more from eyewitnesses. All say they heard a loud boom before it crashed.

 

[Astro14]

Again, I am sorry for your loss.

A rushed flight at 2AM, with your very own daughter's life at stake, over complete darkness is a recipe for distraction, errors, and what aviation accident investigators refer to as "human factors".

The boom heard by eye witnesses is interesting...but those same investigators will tell you that 90% of eyewitness accounts are in error. People are not reliable witnesses in accidents - for a variety of reasons; they weren't paying attention to the events leading up to the crash, they aren't aviation experts, their minds "fill in the blanks" of images to create something that makes sense to them.

So, I don't necessarily buy the timing on the "boom" - sounds as much like a helicopter hitting the water as it does a mechanical failure...and it could be either.

It's too early to tell.

But even exceptionally experienced pilots make mistakes, particularly when they are rushed, when they are distracted by the serious illness of a loved one on board, and particularly when they are flying in demanding conditions with those factors.

 

[Cujet]

As information comes in, CFIT seems less and less likely to a number of us. I have absolutely no involvement in this, other than Geoff was next door to me.

It is very easy to blame disorientation as the cause. But this type of night operation is not quite as black and hopeless as many think. The water is shallow, clear and both the water and the bottom is visible in the landing lights. It's anything but a black hole.

The tail boom was found 500 feet from the fuselage. Furthermore, the left side of the airframe took the hit.

My money is on a mechanical.

 

[Astro14]

Please keep us posted as the analysis comes in. The picture always changes as new evidence is uncovered.

I'm curious as well. I've learned from every mishap/accident report I've ever read. I've read hundreds.

And please understand; I'm very sorry for the loss.

 

[Mr Nice]

What would be the typical altitude the helicopter would fly at when headed back to Florida ?

Maybe the pilot(s) didn't have enough time and try an autorotation if they lost engine power ?

 

[Cujet]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice
What would be the typical altitude the helicopter would fly at when headed back to Florida ?

Maybe the pilot(s) didn't have enough time and try an autorotation if they lost engine power ?


Twin engines. Unlikely they needed to autorotate. The loss of one engine is made up by the other.

In other words, OEI operations (one engine inoperative) has the other engine make up all or nearly all the loss.

 

[DoubleWasp]

My uneducated instincts are telling me that suddenly deciding to prep an aircraft and fly it in the middle of the night is maybe not a good idea? No sarcasm implied. Just seems like a bad setup as previously mentioned.