A 1993 helicopter crash killed the pilot when an unsecured kneeboard likely struck the tail rotor. Kenny Keller walks through how cockpit items can exit the cabin and offers practical ways to secure gear and prepare for doors-off flying.
1993.
574-767-1797.
Remove the right-hand door and leave the other (left) door on.
Doors off, flying helicopter cushion flies out the window, doors off, flying in the helicopter, a piece of paper goes in front of our faces and out the window it goes, kneeboard goes out the window, goes in the tail rotor and causes a fatal accident. So I am not trying to be crude about that, but we just looked this accident up before we hit record today and the accident that we're talking about happened in 1993. And I read through the report real quick and I just want to give you one line. The kneeboard exhibited impact damage and paint transfer consistent with the color of the tail rotor blades. The tip of one of the tail rotor blades exhibited damage on the leading edge. So this is a fatal accident where the occupants were killed, both of them, because they can only surmise for whatever reason, the knee board came off the leg went out in the the window, destroyed the tail rotor. And witnesses said they saw the helicopter spiraling, spiraling to the ground after having hearing a couple of big bangs. You know the seat cushion thing, that's for real. Some guys I was working for in an instrum instruments got three seat cushions for when you're doing rides. And one day I was flying back from giving rides and you know, the seat cushion starts doing this because I didn't have it secured. So I landed, secured the seat and continued on to the airport. And when I got there and told the guys I worked for what happened, they go, oh yeah, that happened to us one day when we didn't have it strapped in good and the whole seat cushion went out the window on that aircraft. It went out the right hand side tail rotors over here. So it didn't cause any kind of a fatal accident. But they had to go back and drive around the field to find the seat cushion that went out the window. Little pissed little piece of paper. Yeah, it's just a piece of paper. But how distracting and flying when we were being careful just this past summer, trying to make sure the cockpit's clean and taken care of. And we had a small piece of paper, something like this for some notes of videos we were making or whatever. Pretty distracting when that thing starts flipping around inside the aircraft and goes out the window, right. It still makes your heart race even though it's a little piece of paper. So the point of this video is pretty easy. It's about securing the cockpit, you know, at the end of the day, making sure you put everything back when you pre flight. If you're going to have doors off, Robinson says take off right hand door and leave this door on, which is a great idea. So anytime you're going to remove the doors on the helicopter, make sure you don't have anything laying around, laying around inside the cockpit that's going to go out the window. Because at worst you could have a fatal accident. And more on the comical side, you could be out, you know, chasing your seat cushion in a field somewhere. I just keep laughing because, you know, I'm trying not to make too much light of it, but this whole series of videos is about just things that happen. And again, I mentioned, I think in yesterday's video or the day before, buddy of mine who's a CFI out in California, text me and said, you know, the FAA is pushing transparency, right? And a lot of people have giving us good feedback on these videos because I'm just telling you what goes on in the real world. Speaking of knee boards, we've been talking a lot about these lately and checklists and kneeboards. We have an E board that we actually will ship with you with a special package that comes in the HOGS backpack with a series of books. And we had these on our website for a little bit during a special holiday sale. We might do that again here in the near future. But meanwhile, we have stock over here. So if you'd like a package to get all the books you need, everything you need. If you're just starting out and you just like, hey, I want you to ship me everything I'm going to need, reach out to Hogsmember support 574-767-1797 and we can hook you up before we go. Top 10 checkride tips, free PDF down below. And we can also ship you that for just shipping and handling in the US Same thing with my first book, my first Amazon number one bestseller, Helicopter Trek Ride. And then we got a free maneuver guide down below as well. So click that subscribe button, click the bell, and we'll see you in tomorrow's video. Peace out.
When you feel the pressure to fly, but know the right decision is to stay on the ground, hit the hogs no go and live to fly another day. Helicopterground.com.
