regarding NVG operations. Pilots and nonpilot crew alike were required to take a ground training course and complete three takeoffs and landings in the pre- ceding 90 days. Pilots had to log five hours of super- vised NVG flight for certification, and nonpilots only two hours. The pilot’s last three takeoffs and landings had occurred over the course of two flights that included less than one hour of NVG time, and his last NVG competence check four months earlier had not involved low-altitude flight over water. The TAIC report concluded that, “With more cur- rency on NVG, the pilot might have questioned [the] impression of a dark area beyond the cloud,” particu- larly since the crew had seen a layer of low fog during the daylight portion of the flight.


The Takeaway There’s little question that the crew’s HUET training saved their lives—but the immersion suits didn’t con- tain the flares, personal locator beacons, or cutaway knives specified by company procedures. (One uniden- tified crew member did have a flashlight and a pocketknife.) The stowage of the life raft and emergency gear “go-bag” in the cabin didn’t anticipate the impossibility of retrieving them from an inverted fuselage in the dark before the helicopter sank. Thoughtful placement and


perhaps water-activated lights could help assure emer- gency equipment can reliably be accessed and deployed in the shock of an actual emergency. The TAIC report details how the flight’s risk profile progressively escalated. The distance from Invercargill to Enderby Island exceeded the helicopter’s standard range, requiring supplemental fuel in an external pod. Past a certain point, returning to the mainland was impossible, necessitating a landing somewhere in the Auckland Islands. The original plan would have gotten the crew to the destination before dark, but the delayed departure left them relying on NVG to land on uninhabited terrain during the darkest part of the night. The pilot was also nearing his duty-day limitations even without account- ing for the additional fatigue of NVG flight, estimated by an advisory circular as 2.3 times that of VFR daytime flight. His lack of an instrument rating increased reli- ance on visual cues, including depth perception— known to be prone to error using NVG—and probably contributed to lack of attention to the radio altimeter and the consequent failure to stabilize the aircraft at an altitude safely above the terrain. The outcome demonstrates that the difference


between nominal currency and genuine sharpness becomes increasingly crucial as the margin for error diminishes.


MARCH 2024 ROTOR 87


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  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100