- Thread starter AlterEgo
- Start date
Helicopter with tourists missing
As a former flight safety investigator I would say it is probably too soon for a determination of all cause factors.
It would only be considered not the best idea in the world if the pilot does not have an instrument rating(think JFK Jr's crash going to Marthas Vinyard that was determined to most likely to be the result of spatial disorientation). Spatial disorientation is a common cause of crashes, especially among non-instrument rated pilots.
Instrument rated pilots fly at night all the time - it's common to the point of being routine. And speaking of helicopters in particular, police and news choppers are in the air at night all the time.
I didn't see anywhere in the articles what the pilot's total time was and whether or not he had an instrument rating.
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All true, since flying "VFR into IFR" is a top reason for GA crashed.
But in IFR the pilot is in constant contact with ATC and can report emergency issues. An instrument-rated pilot (besides myself, there may be at least three others on DR1 I'm aware of) flying night VFR is still flying VFR where "follow me" contact with ATC is optional. Even with training, you are on your own, virtually unseen by ATC beyond your transponder. And if a helicopter transponder slows or stops, ATC may think you just landed somewhere. One of the first things a trained pilot does when in trouble after "fly the airplane", is to change the transponder from 1200 to 7700.
I don't know much about helicopter ratings, but I suspect the insurance company has strict criteria as to who/what ratings can fly an expensive helicopter they insure.
And spatial disorientation is real. It has never happened to me in flight or "under the hood" in training or recurrency, but the FAA had a "spatial disorientation" machine at Sun 'n Fun in Lakeland FL. It was really a closed, windowless box on a 3-axis platform with basic VFR steam gauges, etc. You get in, close the door, and you hear an ATC voice give repeated directional and altitude commands, "turn heading 245, climb to 3000 feet" all while the outside operator makes the box move in all manner of angles.
At first, you're OK. But in my case after about 25 seconds I honestly did not know up from down, climb from descent, left from right or attack angle. With minimal no view of the horizon, and even with a strong focus on gauges, you are compromised. Even with extreme attention to the gauges, and even with an instrument rating, your brain plays tricks. It's one thing to think "trust your gauges", but all that means is to ignore what your inner ear says...which is much easier said than done.
The guy operating the machine is an FAA safety guy. He claims that 100% of all who get in the box WILL become disoriented between 11 and 45 seconds. That's the purpose of the training: to prove not that it can, but WILL happen to you in certain situations.
It's a humbling experience. I am surprised spatial disorientation training is not a requirement in early IFR training just to humble cocky pilots. This cannot be simulated under the hood. It's one thing to enter a hold then fly an ILS to minimums in a static simulator or even under the hood with an instructor. Add spatial disorientation in real life, and those relatively simple tasks become literally life or death.
I had a similar FAA demonstration in a chair that resembled a barber's chair. They strapped you in, told you to put your head down, and close your eyes. They then started to spin the chair rapidly for about 15 seconds and then stopped it and told you to raise your head and open your eyes. All I can say is - good thing I was strapped in! Even if you do have the wherewithal to trust your instruments, it's a challege to focus on them with your head spinning like that. Fortunately, that level of disorientaion would only be something you might experience from a fully developed spin.
I'm surprised that you never received any spatial orientation because they do teach it. Typically, the flight instructor will put the student under the hood and tell him/her to look down and close their eyes. The instructor will then proceed to put the aircraft through a series of unusual attitudes - steep turns, very high pitch up and pitch down attitudes during which at some point the student is told to look up and recover the aircraft.
One of the articles mentioned that controllers lost contact so, apparently he was in contact with them at some point in time. I saw no mention of whether he was on an IFR or VFR flight plan. I don't know what the rule is here in the DR but, while VFR is prohibited, most islands in the Caribbean allow IFR flights at night.
Recovery from unusual attitudes was a LOT different than spacial disorientation. Like you said, that chair starts to spin and about 15 seconds in you begin to lose it. I know climbing out was a weird sensation because my "orientation" had not fully recovered. The instructor was there to lend stability climbing out. I veered left on the ground. He said virtually everybody veers left at exit.
Are you instrument rated?
Night VFR in the US is wonderful. You can request flight following with ATC. There are plenty of well lit roads and towns. You can dial up the frequency of a field and remotely control the runway lights etc.
A whole lot different flying night VFR here, especially going cross country. The terrain is particularly harsh. Even during day VFR on a clear day I'm always scanning for a place to put down should my engine fail. In the interior of this island there are very few places. I would always elect for a water ditching and aim for a lake or river. Those are difficult to spot at night.
A whole lot different flying night VFR here, especially going cross country. The terrain is particularly harsh. Even during day VFR on a clear day I'm always scanning for a place to put down should my engine fail. In the interior of this island there are very few places. I would always elect for a water ditching and aim for a lake or river. Those are difficult to spot at night.
Ditto.....always preferred night flying........air is smoother.......you can't beat those VOR's........and those well lit roadways have made many a VFR pilot an IFR type (IFlyRoads).
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2
There are some things I just dont do in the dominican republic ( unless I am really, really, obliged to ), and getting into a helicopter is high up on the list....... right between " not using lifts " and " gambling in casinos "............ sorry if it offends.
Totally off-topic,
Doing unusal stuff for the first time as a kid ( like scuba diving, bungee jumping, etc......) was nearly always done in the US ( or to a lesser extent Switzerland, cos they are so maniacly organised lol ). My parents reasoning : the company cant/dont take the risk of something going wrong or they will be sued for everything they have and will ever have.....lol.
Totally off-topic,
Doing unusal stuff for the first time as a kid ( like scuba diving, bungee jumping, etc......) was nearly always done in the US ( or to a lesser extent Switzerland, cos they are so maniacly organised lol ). My parents reasoning : the company cant/dont take the risk of something going wrong or they will be sued for everything they have and will ever have.....lol.
Playacaribe 2 said:
Another ditto. Night VFR can be relaxing unless the ceilings start dropping. On a clear winter night it's like you can see forever...
I flew from the Cessna factory in Independence KS to Memphis at night in January in a brand new 172S. It started snowing about an hour out, sometimes more than flurries. It wasn't IMC but I never flew in those conditions before. It was also the first time I used pitot heat...just in case..and kept a paranoid eye out for icing. All ended well, just another experience survived.
Night IFR in IMC is a nightmare. I caught a bunch of non-convective dense clouds between Jacksonville and St. Pete at 9pm, and spent an hour in the dark soup. Alone. Just me and ATC. It's amazing the tricks your mind can play...
I still remember my solo night cross country for my private: Exciting and a bit scary. But what a sense of accomplishment!
My daughter just started her Instrumentation Training. She said there is a Spatial Disorientation section in the class but she hasn't gotten to it yet.
She also said when she was getting her pilots license her flight instructor did something in cloud coverage to give her a taste of it.
It's very important to learn about it. There's two kinds of SD - visual induced and vestibular induced. The instructor probably put the acft in a steep turn in the clouds while she had her eyes closed and then snapped out of it. You'll have the sensation that you're banking/turning when you no longer are. You have to ignore the sensation and fly your instruments.
The maneuvering I mentioned during unusual attitude training is all done under the hood and can induce SD so, now in addition to dealing with that you also have to recover from an unusual attitude.
The full motion sim you were in can probably produce angles of bank and pitch that could not be safely done at the same rate or degree that you could in a real acft and that's why it had such an effect - and couldn't be duplicated in a real acft to that extent.
Yes. I'm instrument rated but not current. Except for sightseeing flights, I would much rather fly IFR any day than VFR. IFR is much easier and safer, especially in highly congested areas like South Florida or the north east.
Having done both---attitude recover under the hood and a SD trainer---I can definitively say there is little similarity between them. The hood confuses you a little. The sim completely physically and perceptionally whacks you out.
What induces the SD in the sim is a constant slow spinning of the machine. The additional movement is the final blow.
If you ever get to Sun 'n Fun you should check it out. It's there every year, and a truly humbling experience.
I am also not current and my medical expired in 2007.
It is different and more challenging in a full motion sim than in an actual acft because the sim can produce greater angles of pitch and bank and faster roll rates than could safely be done in an actual acft. The instructor might have also been giving you false attitude indications to cause even more disorientation.
There are different degrees of disorientation and some people are more susceptible to it than others - that's why in turbulence you'll see some passengers reaching for the "barf bag" while others are just merely uncomfortable. The level that you experiened in the sim and that I did in that chair can't realistically be produced in an acft, and everybody would have the same extreme disorientation we did in those demonstrations. Nobody would be immune from that.
I've been in a full motion sim many times and have practiced recovery from banks greater than 90 degrees, pitch more than 30, and even recovery from inverted flight. I have more hours in a full motion sim than many GA pilots have total time.
The FAA safety sim doesn't do radical angles. It just makes you lose complete touch with your physical orientation.
The seat is the revolving pivot point, so at first you really don't feel a whole lot. But after a half dozen instructions from ATC where you change heading or altitude, he asks you to change transponder settings like you're being handed off to a different center. And when you reach to change the transponder...wham!...your inner ears move off center and disorientation hits you all at once, your head starts spinning and after that it's an internal battle between "trust the instruments" and "WTF is going on, which end is up?"
I never felt the latter in IFR training or any other time. Even in the soup I never felt disoriented. I actually enjoyed bad attitude recovery, it's like a step-by-step game. Spin training never bothered me at all.
I have no experience with disorientation as a "pilot" since my "hours" consist of one quickie cheapie lesson in perfect weather. I used to fly as a passenger quite a bit and turbulence never bothered me. A bumpy landing on the heart attack approach at Kai Tak Hong Kong in soupy windy conditions was the scariest experience I ever had.
I took a swimming excursion on a boat from Key West once with about 40 passengers. We anchored on a shallow shoal and swam off the boat. The weather was great but while we were there some swells came rolling in and half of the people got seasick. I didn't consciously think of it but I stayed upright hanging on to railings and ladders letting my body roll with gravity and staying aware of the horizon and didn't get seasick.
Some people were curling up like puppies trying to hide under pillows.
I took a swimming excursion on a boat from Key West once with about 40 passengers. We anchored on a shallow shoal and swam off the boat. The weather was great but while we were there some swells came rolling in and half of the people got seasick. I didn't consciously think of it but I stayed upright hanging on to railings and ladders letting my body roll with gravity and staying aware of the horizon and didn't get seasick.
Some people were curling up like puppies trying to hide under pillows.
Motion sickness and spacial disorientation are two different things.
And you are correct: I've had many guests on my sailboats "feed the fish."
Condolences to the families of the deceased. On a more logical note; it does not surprise me unfortunately.. as a few others have pointed out with domain knowledge of the crafts that they are more than likely poorly maintained; companies in Dominican do not have enough accountability to maintain the crafts. Only aircraft I would ever get on would be European or North American.