Six dead in chopper crash in Hudson River, 10/04/2025

[red750]

Two adults, three children and the pilot were killed when a helicopter broke up and plunged into the Hudson River in New York. The Bell 206 lost its rotor blades and tail in the accident, and the rotor blades were seen fluttering down into the river. Video of the helicopter tumbling upside down can be seen here.

 

Agustin Escobar, who has been President of tech giant Siemens in Spain since 2022, and his family were on a sight-seeing flight after arriving in New York that morning.

 

[planedriver]

Very sad outcome.

Although i've been in quite a few, personally, I dont like them much as I feel they rely on on too many parts which could go wrong, go wrong.

Maintenance demands seem far hight than what i'd prefer.

Simple things generally seem more reliable to me.

That's just my personal feelings.

[spacesailor]

The " Fairey rotodyne " solve that problem of too many parts .

They put " ram-jets  " on the rotor tips . Noisy but only for vertical take-off , then it became an " autogyro " .

Design parameters " airport / city run " .

 

spacesailor

 

[onetrack]

The Hueys were reliable beyond belief in the Vietnam War, and they often took a lot of fire, and still kept flying.

[BrendAn]

10 hours ago, planedriver said:

Very sad outcome.

Although i've been in quite a few, personally, I dont like them much as I feel they rely on on too many parts which could go wrong, go wrong.

Maintenance demands seem far hight than what i'd prefer.

Simple things generally seem more reliable to me.

That's just my personal feelings.

How many chopper flight hours per year compared to accidents. The percentage would be very small I imagine.

[facthunter]

Much more any time I've checked the figures. They are not as safe as fixed wing partly due to the Nature of their operations but they are maintenance intense. Not one of the US choppers sent to rescue the Hostages in IRAN got there..  Nev

[BurnieM]

5 minutes ago, facthunter said:

 Not one of the US choppers sent to rescue the Hostages in IRAN got there..  Nev

I have always thought this mission failure was more about the attitude of the US military.

 

If it had been the Isrealis they would have planned for the effects of flying at a low level over a sandy desert for hundreds of kilometres

and

if they had got down to only 1 serviceable aircraft they would have continued the mission.

 

[BrendAn]

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

Much more any time I've checked the figures. They are not as safe as fixed wing partly due to the Nature of their operations but they are maintenance intense. Not one of the US choppers sent to rescue the Hostages in IRAN got there..  Nev

You are the fact hunter, how about putting up statistics instead of your own view.   If you have a look you will see it's around 3.7 accidents per million hours, that's all incidents not just fatalities.

[facthunter]

I call that BS. .  My title is not factprovider.   Nev

[BrendAn]

Accident_trends.pdf

[BrendAn]

[BrendAn]

These screenshots are blurry but you can click on the link at the top.

[facthunter]

I'd expect them to be TRENDING down with better equipment but IT's NOT good. Per flying hour on Kms based it wouldn't be near as safe as RPT fixed wing and they don't carry large Numbers of passengers. so don't kill as many per hull loss. . Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Per km traveled wouldn't be a good comparison as fixed wing has to go forward for lift to be generate; helicopters in normal ops will hover, reverse, etc. Straight number of accidents per year is also not a good measure as it doesn't take into account the rate of change of a) number of air-frames added/removed from the population, nor rate of change of hours flown. If the fleet is flying more hours, it is likely to have more accidents.

 

Here is an interesting vid; I had no idea about mast bumping...

 

Edited yesterday at 06:42 AM by Jerry_Atrick

[Red]

Yeah one of the reasons aeros in a Helicopter aren't a good idea for most Helicopter/pilot combinations.

Negative G is a no-no

[planedriver]

I've always felt a little more comfortable flying builders planks than ceiling fans.

Silly terms maybe.😜

[planedriver]

14 minutes ago, Red said:

Yeah one of the reasons aeros in a Helicopter aren't a good idea for most Helicopter/pilot combinations.

Negative G is a no-no

Not always prudent to push the boundaries into the somewhat unknown.

[BrendAn]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

I'd expect them to be TRENDING down with better equipment but IT's NOT good. Per flying hour on Kms based it wouldn't be near as safe as RPT fixed wing and they don't carry large Numbers of passengers. so don't kill as many per hull loss. . Nev

I never compared fw . It's obvious choppers can't win that one. Just saying the accident rate is still extremely low for them. 

Look at the weather the rescue and police choppers went out in during the severe storm that hit the Sydney to Hobart that time. Winds gusting 100 mph and these blokes were holding station over dismasted yachts. Pretty impressive.

[BrendAn]

36 minutes ago, Red said:

Yeah one of the reasons aeros in a Helicopter aren't a good idea for most Helicopter/pilot combinations.

Negative G is a no-no

Neg g bump is a 2 blade rotor problem due to the teeter rotor heads.

I think you will find aerobatic choppers have 3 blade rotors.

[BrendAn]

Many gyro pilots died in the early days due to mast bump. 

Hughie pilots were trained to avoid it too. There is a bell training video on YouTube.

[Red]

6 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

Neg g bump is a 2 blade rotor problem due to the teeter rotor heads.

I think you will find aerobatic choppers have 3 blade rotors.

Indeed, but its still a very very bad idea even on non teetering heads for most pilots, I've never heard of a specifically aerobatic helicopter regardless of rotor system is in use.

The bloke in the MBB BO105 always impressed but its a very niche area

[BrendAn]

6 minutes ago, Red said:

Indeed, but its still a very very bad idea even on non teetering heads for most pilots, I've never heard of a specifically aerobatic helicopter regardless of rotor system is in use.

The bloke in the MBB BO105 always impressed but its a very niche area

Probably not a lot of call for one. Be more exciting than watching dull fw aeros though.

[Deano747]

5 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

Here is an interesting vid; I had no idea about mast bumping...

Really unlikely to be mast bumping given that a fair portion of the gearbox came out with the rotor.

Very different failure pattern and the 206 not really prone to it.

The 204/205 could be induced to mast bump if badly mishandled or severe turbulence.

(For reference, I have some experience both as an RAAF airframe fitter and later as a pilot on the 204/205) 

[kgwilson]

It looks like the so called "Jesus Nut" failed dramatically in this mechanical failure. Helicopters are very reliable these days and also due to the requirements of very high strength components and rigorous maintenance regimes luckily don't have too many main rotor separations.

[Thruster88]

It looks from the vid that the tail boom failed first, the fuselage turns through about 90° very quickly, main rotor with gear box still attached separated after that.