ALAMY/ARCTIC IMAGES


ACCIDENT RECOVERY


By David Jack Kenny


Running on (Almost) Empty Your planned fuel stop doesn’t have fuel. Now what?


T 56 ROTOR JUNE 2024


HANKS TO THEIR UNPARALLELED flexibility in where they can land, helicopters are less susceptible to accidents caused by fuel


exhaustion than just about any other class of aircraft. That doesn’t translate to complete immunity, though. Precisely the wrong combination of insufficient plan- ning, ill-advised pilot decisions, inhospitable terrain, and just plain bad luck can result in the engine quitting while the aircraft is still in the air. And each such acci- dent follows a moment or two when a different deci- sion could have eliminated the risk of crashing.


The Flight On Jun. 11, 2023, a pilot and an aerial photographer boarded a Bell 206B JetRanger at Dodge City (Kansas)


Regional Airport (KDDC) to continue a pipeline inspec- tion. They’d stayed in Dodge City overnight after completing the previous day’s work. Winds were gust- ing to 26 kt. when they met at 8:00 am but were fore- cast to subside, so they waited about an hour before taking off. The main pipeline the pilot and photographer were


following ran southwest to the vicinity of Beaver in the Oklahoma panhandle, and the pilot determined that they could inspect that area and all the branches “except one really long one” en route. The pilot planned to refuel at Perryton Ochiltree County Airport (KPYX), 20 miles southwest of the end of the pipeline and just across the Oklahoma panhandle in northernmost Texas.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68