ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 90226
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| Date: | Thursday 17 February 2011 |
| Time: | 12:20 LT |
| Type: |  Eurocopter AS 350B2 Ecureuil |
| Owner/operator: | Heliswiss |
| Registration: | HB-ZHI |
| MSN: | 9075 |
| Year of manufacture: | 2006 |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 6 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Les Diablerets -
 Switzerland
|
| Phase: | En route |
| Nature: | Passenger |
| Departure airport: | Gstaad |
| Tsanfleuron | |
| Confidence Rating: |  Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources |
Crashed. Six people onboard are injured. The helicopter is fully destroyed.
"Translation with google of www.blick.ch article"
Above Les Diablerets today is an accident of Valais ground at 12.20 clock a helicopter. The accident happened near the crag "Quille du Diable".
Six people were injured. The pilot sat in the helicopter (44) and a mountain guide from the canton of Bern, and a heli-skiing and three Skillehrer customers. They wanted to settle on a helicopter landing pad. The crash site is located between two ski lifts.
The helicopter was operated by the Heliswiss Switzerland, as the company confirmed. So it was a type B2 Ecureuil helicopter.
The passengers were lucky in misfortune: four persons subjected to moderate injuries in the accident, the other two were lightly wounded. According to witnesses of the injured skiers were conscious. They were taken to surrounding hospitals.
An eyewitness reported
Apparently, the helicopter tried to approach the landing site, such as the Valais canton police said. Crashed he was the crags "Quille du diable" in the field of Tour St-Martin - about 50 feet below the landing site. The area is located in 2900 meters near the border between the cantons of Valais and Vaud.
The cause of the crash is still unknown. The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation (BFU) of the Federation will investigate the accident.
The Rega was at 12.30 clock alarmed because of the accident, the Canton police at 12.50 clock. were for the bailout including five helicopters from Air Glaciers and the Air Rescue Service in action. The helicopter was launched from Gstaad.
In visual flight en route
"The helicopter did not fly in controlled airspace," said the spokesman for Skyguide air traffic control, Raimund Fridrich, compared Blick.ch. "There was no contact with air traffic control." The pilot was en route to visual flight. The crash had been triggered alarm automatically. (Chu / sik / GTQ / noo / SDA)
Extracted from the Final Report issued by Swiss AIG:
"flight history
Shortly after 12:00 p.m., the AS 350 B2 took off from the Gstaad-Grund base in the direction of “Glacier 3000”.
The pilot analyzed the cloud and Shreds of mist that were above the Tsanfleuron Glacier.
The pilot decided to fly over these shreds into the glacier area first.
Visibility was quite good centrally above the glacier, so the pilot initiated the descent.
A first approach along the "P12 Tsanfleuron" lift was aborted because the intended landing site had insufficient visual references.
In this phase, the mountain guide explained how he would conduct the approach. According to his information, he had several years of experience as a mountain guide on heli-ski flights, and on the other hand he had completed a few flying hours as a helicopter pilot.
After HB-ZHI had arrived at the starting point of this approach after a turn around, the pilot turned the machine in a 180° turn to the right around a ridge of rock protruding from the glacier and followed the "P11 Quille du Diable" lift in the direction of the official mountain landing site.
The pilot of HB-ZHI had selected a landing site which was located directly at t0he crossroads of the footpath between the lift and "Refuge" and the ski slope.
At this place, the pilot had different poles of the path and way markers available, which served him as a visual reference.
He informed the mountain guide of his decision and at the same time explained to him that this would be his last attempt to land here.
The pilot described the plan for a possible termination of the approach (escape plan) as follows: "Escape was to turn right before the rock and in the later phase of the approach turn left and leave the situation with the ski lift as a reference heading east".
If necessary, climb a little to avoid the white out and thus keep the ski lift in view.
“As the machine approached the landing site, the rising terrain to the west of the footpath was discernible, but according to the pilot, did not provide sufficient reference.
A ski instructor with his guests had just left the mountain station of the lift and became aware of the approaching helicopter.
The crest of the opposite ridge lay in the fog.
There were wisps of fog between the expected landing site of HB-ZHI and its location, so that the ski instructor only had partial visual contact with what was happening.
As the helicopter neared the ground, the snow was blown up, as the pilot had expected.
The pilot used the pole of runway marking No. 2 and described his hovering flight with the words: "...more restless than usual for me.
According to his statements, he had the pole in his field of vision as a visual reference.
After the whirling of the snow had subsided, he floated in such a way that the pole was approx. 1.50 meters in front of the helicopter cabin.
Wanting to avoid the rotor plane touching the rod on landing, he began floating backwards.
The mountain guide also found the hover to be restless and also noticed rotations around the vertical axis.
During this phase he also spoke to the pilot on various occasions, who felt particularly disturbed by the tone chosen.
The occupants in the back of the helicopter watched as the mountain guide gesticulated and spoke to the pilot.
The mountain guide was with the words: "You, we are close behind.
' worried that the helicopter's tail would collide with the rocks behind them and asked the pilot to abort the approach.
The pilot felt everything was under control and continued to focus on the expected slant landing.
During this phase of the flight, the husband of the guest couple intervened with the mountain guide with the words: "[First name of the mountain guide], tell him to stop", which the mountain guide also did directly with the words "Stop, stop".
According to the pilot, these verbal interventions were so insistent that he now considered the boulders estimated 30 meters behind them as a danger in his decisions.
Up to this point, the pilot always looked at his visual reference and was of the opinion that he could land as planned.
The ongoing interventions irritated the pilot and, according to his statements, finally tempted him to abort the landing.
He set takeoff power and began to fly away in front.
The HB-ZHI collided with the slightly uphill terrain and overturned.
The ski instructor, who had observed the approach from the mountain station of the lift, heard a dull bang.
He immediately went along the hiking trail to the suspected accident site.
When he had crossed the start of the runway, the fog cleared and he could see the wreckage of the helicopter farther up.
The pilot and the mountain guide were off the He, along with their seats ejected from an icopter.
The four occupants on the rear bench were still in their seat belts.
The pilot and the passenger, who was seated in the middle back left, were slightly injured.
The remaining four passengers suffered serious injuries.
The helicopter was destroyed."
Sources:
https://de.nachrichten.yahoo.com/2/20110217/tts-hubschrauber-mit-fuenf-insassen-in-d-c1b2fc3.html
https://www.blick.ch/news/schweiz/sechs-verletzte-helikopter-absturz-bei-les-diablerets-id69712.html
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 17-Feb-2011 11:04 | TB | Added |
| 17-Feb-2011 11:10 | TB | Updated [Operator, Total occupants, Source, Damage] |
| 17-Feb-2011 11:14 | Alpine Flight | Updated [Time, Aircraft type, Registration, Cn, Location, Phase, Nature, Source, Narrative] |
| 17-Feb-2011 14:34 | Black Typhoon | Updated [Aircraft type, Departure airport, Destination airport] |
| 18-Feb-2011 03:44 | Anon. | Updated [Narrative] |
| 18-Nov-2022 19:32 | Eugenio Grigorjev | Updated [Narrative] |
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