Episode 456: The #1 Mistake That Leads to Helicopter Accidents- Dirty Dozen #1

So this picture, this is the aircraft I was in in 2005, destroyed itself on a ramp. So this is a paper clipping. And this perfectly goes with the content today that I want to talk about. So this was August 6, 2005. Helicopter destroyed itself, ejected two of us, and the kid in the back remained with what was left of the fuselage. So, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. And I'll try not to make it too long. But the series of videos we're doing now, kind of a pet project of mine. I've been wanting to do this for a while. If any of you have heard of the Maintenance Dirty Dozen, I'll give you where this originated from here in a minute. I'm going to do my take on it. So I'm just taking the Dirty Dozen that was put out in the '90s. And I did a quick research on this or some research on it real quick. So just playing around, I jumped on AI and said, hey, where did this original Dirty Dozen come from? And is it still valid today? And AI said, yes, absolutely. This original dirty dozen is still widely accepted across aviation, across the board. So I got thinking, why not put kind of our helicopter spin on this dirty dozen? I like this one as the first one, not because I like what happened to me, but because what happened to me included a vibration. A couple of different mechanics, the helicopter manufacturer. There's a lot of people involved in this. In this example, it mentions there's a vibration. Like I said, AI came up with this and I'm like, wow, I can absolutely put this communication under my helicopter accident. I wanted to go right into it. This helicopter we were flying, It was an Enstrom helicopter, and I like Enstrom helicopters, so don't think I'm bashing Enstrom because I'm not. Even after my accident in 2005, in 2008, I purchased an Enstrom and I operated one for 4 years after my accident. So to give you the context, it's not that I don't believe in the product. I do, and I still do. But in this case, we had a brand new part in the rotor system that was newly introduced. And I was one of the only ones in the world flying an Enstrom turbine helicopter with a piece in the rotor system changed. It had a hydraulic dampener for I don't know how many years, 30, 40 years, whatever, 50 years at that time. They tried a new elastomeric damper. So let's get into the communication part of it. This could be a 4-hour video if we really wanted to dig in. But so they put a new part in the rotor system. So of course everybody wants to believe that, hey, this new part, it's been tested, it works great. And in this scenario, in the Enstrom, we had this thing called the Enstrom bounce. And when you pick them up and set them down with the elastomer or with the hydraulic dampener, it has this odd little shaking situation going on. Setting down in an Enstrom, they have this normal bounce on pickups and set-downs. And when they brought out the elastomeric dampener, it took away that normal bounce. So of course everybody liked it. Who doesn't want to have a nice smoother pickup and set down? The elastomeric dampener that was installed took away that. So everybody's excited about it. That makes the helicopter nice and smooth. With the hydraulic dampeners, you had to bleed them every so often like you would bleed brakes. So with the new dampener, made the ride smoother. Less maintenance. Nobody wants to believe there's a problem. So during our training, I'm taking an individual from off the street all the way to private pilot. And early on, at some point, we went to lift the aircraft up. And as the owner was rolling the throttle up, helicopter started to vibrate. So we did what we're supposed to do according to the helicopter flying handbook. If it's while you're rolling up, while you're trying to get to RPM, you roll the throttle off. We did that. Well, when we did that, the aircraft violently starts shaking. And so I'm like, whoa, let's shut this thing down. We're done. And we were actually taking off and going to Chicago. So we shut it down. And the guy that I worked for walks out because he's curious why we're not leaving with this $750,000 aircraft and taking the owner back to Chicago. And so I explained to him, hey, I— this thing just did some crazy vibration. I don't know what's going on, but that ain't right. And the owner calls his mechanic, and I'm standing right there where I can hear it, and he says, check this, check that. So we looked a few things over, and on the phone he said, well, have Kenny get back in there and try it again. And I said, uh-uh, no way, I ain't getting back in it. I am not getting back in this thing until it's inspected by a mechanic. So I would have preferred our local mechanic right there. We were a dealer and service center mechanic that was there, been working on helicopters forever. I trust the guy with my life. I wanted him to work on it. But the owner said, no, I want my guy from Chicago to work on it. So he has this guy come down. He does some checking, finds the rear struts are a little flat, pumps them up and says, I think that was your problem. And so I was happy with that, right? Mechanic comes down, does some maintenance, says go ahead and try it. So we jump in, try it, fly it around, come back, appears to be fine. So we move on. At a later point, the aircraft gets moved up to his mechanic. And when I go up to get it and pick it up, the mechanic says, hey, I want to show you what I think that vibration was. And we start the helicopter up and he pushes the helicopter cyclic clear over to the left or right and the helicopter shook and he went back to neutral. And he goes, I think that was what it was. It was just your technique. And I'm like, my technique? OK, I've been flying these things for however long. I had 2,000 hours. I'd flown 30 different Enstroms by that point. I went back and actually looked to see how many different aircraft I'd been in. And I'm like, I know how to pick the helicopter up and down off the ground. I was insulted by the mechanic that said that. Your technique. No, I know how to center the cyclic and lift the aircraft up. So we knew there was something fishy going on there, right? Because I'm still wondering what's going on with it, why did it happen? Here's the kicker. During this time, and I find about this, After the accident, the student, we allow him to take the helicopter home. He's all signed off, proper documents and the whole ball of wax. However, on a solo trip home, he lands somewhere, the aircraft shakes so bad that there's damage to the aircraft. And I'm going off hearsay, I never saw the paperwork, but supposedly there was like maybe a crack in the chin bubble and some damage to the instrument panel because it shook so bad. They chose to move that aircraft to the mechanic, make these repairs, and not tell anybody. They didn't tell me, they didn't tell the people I worked for. So I'm working for the dealer service center, we're providing my services to the aircraft and the owner. Is that not relevant information that I should have been told about because I certainly would have questioned what in the hell is going on with this aircraft that it shook so bad it got damaged. So then we take the story a little farther. The gentleman owned the aircraft, getting ready to take a checkride. He was doing really, really well. We go to pick him up at a different location. We're coming back and I had a kid in the backseat who had just got his private and was working on his commercial. He wanted to ride along. And the beautiful thing about that day was everything was perfect. Like, the day was beautiful. We were on time. Everything just went as expected. And coming back, the guy on the helicopter even had lobster shipped from the East Coast for lunch for everybody. So it was a big deal. We come back, everybody's standing outside waiting on us because they're going to, you know, say hi to the owner and thank him for making a big nice meal for us. We come back and he sets the aircraft down and it was beautiful. It's a perfect landing. After he rolls the throttle off, the helicopter starts to vibrate and there was even time for the kid in the back to go, is that the vibration you guys have been talking about? We both looked at each other and went, yep. Then the aircraft, as you can see in that picture, went crazy and destroyed itself. So lack of communication. I was complaining about it. I kept talking about it. And I was told it was my technique. All right. I was questioning it the whole time going, what is going on with this aircraft? And the fact that they left out pertinent information, I could have made the choice to not fly that aircraft if I'd have known that after our first event, the second event, it shook so bad that there was damage to the aircraft. And then you take it and you have the aircraft repaired and you don't bother to even mention it to us? And our mechanic in the end said, I sure wish I would have had an opportunity to look at that aircraft because I feel like maybe I could have found something. I would have dug deeper. And I'm like, you know what? I wish you would have. And I wish the owner would have let you work on it. I just, I feel better. I feel like you probably would have found something. The mechanic in question, as far as we know, really wasn't— well, I'll just leave that part out of it. Clear that phone. So that's just an example. When I brought this up and it mentioned a vibration, there was a firsthand account where some things are happening with an aircraft. Well, they're going to have this guy work on it, and this guy says that, and then it gets damaged and they don't report it. I learned about that from after the fact. The gentleman's in the hospital and he's on medication, and the kid that was in the back went to the hospital to visit him. And he says, oh yeah, it was just like that day when I landed at such-and-such. And he's like, oh, what happened? He goes, oh, it shook so bad that it damaged this and damaged that. I got a frantic phone call from the kid. Who said, did you know that this aircraft was damaged on a solo? And I'm like, I had no idea. They never told me. And I was the one that actually reached out to the FAA NTSB and said, hey, guess what? And they were like, hmm, it's interesting. Well, we're sure going to check into that and find out what's going on with that. Key helicopter lessons: describe problems clearly when it happens, where it happens, and how severe it is. Never assume someone else understands what you meant. Good communication between pilots and maintenance prevents mechanical surprises. Well, we got a big mechanical surprise on that one. So let us know in the comments down below something you'd like to add to that, some thought you had about the topic. We're going to do 11 more of these videos. And I want to repeat, we are basing this Dirty Dozen on the concept developed originally in 1993 by Gordon DuPont. And we're just going to take it, and I'm going to take the 30 years of things that I've seen. I want to add that the 30 years around, I've been around helicopters now, I'm more serious about maintenance than I've ever been. I haven't gotten more lax as some might. I've become more stringent, more picky, more Just, I don't want even one single item not working on the aircraft. If there's one piece that's not working, I want that one piece fixed. I don't like deferring anything. I like doing more maintenance than it needs than not doing enough. For example, right now our R44 is not here. It's in for 100-hour. I'm doing 100-hour early because I have a busy month the second half of this month. And we're gonna be flying it like crazy. And I don't want to stop in the middle of two busy weeks getting two people ready for checkrides and try to do 100-hour in the middle of all of that. So I made the choice, you know what, we had a slower week this week, let's get it in. I don't normally like to do maintenance inspections early, but in this respect, I can get it back this week. Mechanic has it all week. I'm not pressuring him to get it back because I don't need it till Monday. So it could come back fresh and ready to fly heavy duty for the next 2 weeks. So again, leave us a comment down below and do us a favor, subscribe to the channel. We're trying to get to 50,000 subscribers. We're almost there. As of this morning, we were less than 250 away from 50,000 subscribers. 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