INTHESPOTLIGHT continued
Ah, we can use that to land—alternate from flight to idle and back, and work our way down. That’s what we did seven or eight times. Sidorski: We started about 400 ft. agl, 4 or 5 miles south of the airport.
You were taking advantage of loss of efficiency? Buhagiar: Yes, in idle, [the Nr] would be in the 60s. On the spool up, we’d let it get to 80 or 90, never back to 100. Sidorski: Each time slowing down 10
or 15 kt.
An electrical fire that melted a collective torque tube wreaked havoc on the AW139’s cabin, flight controls, and performance, leaving both pilots wondering if they would survive the event. (Photo courtesy Capts. Steve Buhagiar)
wrong. Even so, we were not giving up on each other, the aircraft, or the people inside. We’re dedicated to flying this thing as much as we can until we can’t. Buhagiar: David contacted Houma
Tower and declared an emergency. Maybe it’s strange, but I always think about the responsibility of being PIC. We need to make sure we’re doing what’s required— declare an emergency, brief the passen- gers, notify the company. Brief the passengers again and tell them when to brace.
Sidorski:We were stable at that point with a second to run through these things. Buhagiar: So down we go, eventually
from 6,700 to 1,000. We’re on both engines doing 160 kt. with the collective full down. As we’re about to fly past the tower so that they can verify that our gear’s down, I say to David, “We’re not going to die today. We have an hour to fig- ure this out.” Sidorski:We tried manual mode once
more. The PI went up and down. We put it back into auto. Clearly, something was wrong with it.
30 ROTOR MARCH 2024
Why didn’t you manually move the levers? Buhagiar: That’s a question we get fairly often, “Did you think about putting it in manual mode and manually moving the levers or beeping the engine control levers with the collective switches?” We had a 1-2 ECL engine control lever
fail caution. Those are moved by an elec- tronic motor and have failed, so the beeper switch won’t work. That leaves moving it by hand, but that’s difficult to do accurately. We decided not to deal with it.
Where were you? Buhagiar: First of three laps. David brings the No. 2 engine to idle. This time, the Nr stays put, again, because we’re lower. We slowed from 160 to 140. Better, but still way too fast. If I take pressure off the cyclic, it still wants to climb like a rocket. When we’re on final, David brings No.
1 to idle. The rpm goes from 100 to 67 immediately. What helicopter keeps flying at 67% Nr? He puts it back to flight. It spools up and the Nr goes to 100. All of a sudden, we’re going around.
You didn’t let it get to 100 because that forces you to start over again? Buhagiar: Exactly. Going to 100 brings the speed back and starts a climb. Sidorski: They say not to go below
90%. We found the aircraft did fly below that. In videos, you could see the blades were coning considerably due to the Nr dropping rapidly into the upper 60s. Buhagiar: On final, we were over the
swamp. I remember that feeling in my stomach.
Like, “If I survive this but land in the swamp, I don’t want to have to wrestle an alligator”? Buhagiar: Right, or have the tree come through the windscreen.
Were you using your power pedal to bleed off energy? Buhagiar: It was both. I wanted to stay rel- atively lined up with the runway. I’d flare it and go left pedal, then bring it back the other way. In the video, it looks like I’m making “S” turns. You see the helicopter kind of flare and go side to side. It was now or never. I had David cut the engines. The rpm immediately dropped. I pulled the col- lective all the way up, everything I could with 67%. I’m thinking, “I’m about to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life. We’re still high. I have nothing I can cushion with.”
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