Drone blamed for Helicopter Crash in South Carolina

[joejaxvic123]

We call those types of trees 'blown oaks' they're shaped by the wind....

Maybe the chopper pilot should send his flight log to dji, they would surely conlcude pilot error....

 

[OralndoMavic]

Glade the pilots were ok. Wrong place, wrong time for the helicopter it think. Practicing maneuvers at that altitude above trees with a pilot in training? The pilot may have overreacted when he saw the drone. I think the drone pilot however should have heard the chopper and brought the drone down. Both are responsible in my eyes.

 

[Dw911]

Maybe this is going to be a new trend...blame mystical drones for all aviation mishaps.

That's what i was thinking too.

Drones are like the cats/dogs of the road, only for the air

"So how did you crash into that tree, were you not paying attention, on the phone etc etc"

"No officer, a dog ran out in front of me and i had to swerve to avoid it and i hit the tree"

"That's a convenient excuse"

"You try and prove it didnt"

 

[floyd]

I am not a pilot. I do not know the intricacies of piloting a plane or helicopter. But I do drive a car. If a squirrel runs out into the road, I run it over. I don't swerve and hit a tree to save a squirrel. Wouldn't the same logic apply here?

 

[Strobing_NYC]

Yes something sounds a little fishy if he was that low the tail rotor hit a tree? What was he training? DJI should have a log if it was a DJI machine. I guess time will tell, I hope this thread updates with more information as it comes out.

 

[lisadoc]

I do know that tree height is not determined by "sea breezes."

Then you don't know biology (or biomechanical engineering) either.

Just by way of example, read this:
https://academic.oup.com/treephys/article-pdf/27/3/433/4690655/27-3-433.pdf

or:
Tree line - Wikipedia

 

[Simmo]

I think the drone pilot however should have heard the chopper and brought the drone down.

Not if he was 4 miles away....

 

[OralndoMavic]

LOS, OBEY THE RULES

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I am not defending the drone pilot but how do we know the helicopter didn’t fly in the location of the drone. Automatically the drone pilot is blamed.

Do helicopter instructors have to fly in specific areas and if so do they have to register flight plans or can they fly were they want?

Don't know if you're in the US, but read FAR 91.119 and 101.41(d). Generally flight instructors will try to find areas with minimal traffic but there is no hard rule where you can give instruction. Regardless, the manned aircraft will ALWAYS have the right of way, PERIOD!

Now with that said, if these two did fake this incident, they will be quickly discovered and I hope the book is thrown at them by a major league baseball pitcher. If a drone did bring down this helicopter, this will be a major black eye to this hobby/ industry. If the drone pilot was flying BVLOS, throw away the key!!!

I'm sitting back and waiting for the NTSB...

 

[princeofthehouse]

this smells fishy.
being low enough to hit a tree, while training a student.
I would love to see any facts to support the claim of a drone being present, but even if there was a drone how did he allow his aircraft to lose so much altitude you hit a tree.
So either the student panicked and when the pilot took control he could not compensate for incorrect input from the student and thus impacted the tree or the pilot himself incorrectly piloted.

It "feels" like someone is telling porkies in order to explain the loss of a helicopter which from my understand rarely are what one would call "cheap".

when training you should assume everything can go wrong and will and put in room for failure.
Low enough to hit a tree.. seems too low.

Just like someone made the comment about small wildlife on the road, if I am driving or flying and the choice comes up, you hit the dam animal rather then undertake a poor manuver.
a helicopter hit by a drone is not ideal but any helicopter should be able to handle such a impact I think.

anyway guess we will see. just seems odd.

 

[OralndoMavic]

Well said

 

[Lopez0015]

https://gizmodo.com/this-could-be-the-first-drone-caused-aircraft-crash-in-1823071652?ref=hover

 

[radial]

"Mysterious drone sighting" accounts for a multitude of sins.

 

[DroneJI]

Student screwed up, instructor tried to correct but failed, both concocted a story to CYA and blamed a drone. Now if they were flying as they said and some irresponsible person flew their phantom intentionally and caused them to crash then that person should be held accountable, but if it was made up story to CYA then they should be held accountable.

This is what I thought could be the truth! They were very specific about the type of drone! I would think as a student and a instructor they would naturally e nervous especially when flying a Helicopter! They are not exactly as forgiving as a plane! If they had the time to see it was definitely a Phantom they should have had time to avoid it! But if the instructor wasn’t doing his job properly they could be making up a story for a bit of CYA! So he doesn’t loose his job! I hope the truth comes out on this one! I don’t worry about hellos as much as planes because they are much louder and slower than a plane! At least most of them, but they have a advantage they can hover so we’ll see how this story turns out! Definitely one I’m going to watch!

 

[DroneJI]

I never thought that if the pilot was lying the FAA could pull logs of and DJI drone flown in that area and compare it to the Helo pilots story? Now I don’t mind DJI seeing everything I do! It’s like a DashCam it can prove my innocence or Guilt if I were to do something stupid I don’t plan on ever doing anything to risk another person with my Drones!

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I read a few more articles on this and as of today there seems to be rather vague information on this incident so I decided to look up a few things...

The aircraft involved was a 1999 R22 (N337H) registered to Spitzer Leasing, they're out of Southern CA. The NTSB opened an incident number (GAA18CA131) but has not given any preliminary details. If this aircraft had ADS-B installed, there might be downloadable flight data available.

I find it strange that more hasn't been put out on this or no one has mentioned the name of the instructor and/ or student.

 

[Simmo]

But data off the Robinson is not going to show what the pilots did or did not see?? Its obvious that there were some dodgy control inputs because the thing crashed!

 

[Bugzy]

I think the only way a drone could bring down a helicopter is if it went at high speed directly into the rotor, and even then, I think the rotor would eat it for breakfast and not even flinch, of course the helicopter pilot could panic and crash into a tree, nice job dummy.

 

[Babbe]

FYI. There was a drone collision this past week in Hawaii on Kauai. A drone hit a helicopter or vice Versa. Unfortunately, the drone was flying over a state park so there is no question who was at fault. Hawaii is looking at who should be enforcing the laws since it is illegal to fly over state parks. Incidents such as this one makes it very difficult on those in the community who do follow the rules. We don’t need more bad press.

 

[Simmo]

Shoot, I read the above as SKATE park first off.....WTF is a helicopter doin' flyin' low over a Skate park.... doofus!