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ACCIDENT RECOVERY
By David Jack Kenny
Practice Makes Perfect
Three ditching survivors acknowledge owing their lives to underwater egress training.
successfully confronting a life-threatening emergency. With no time to puzzle out a response or even read a checklist, survival depends not just on remembering the correct sequence of steps but on having practiced it recently and often enough to execute it precisely and without hesitation—in a situation certain to be more chaotic and frightening than the typical training environment.
W In its final report on the Jan. 28, 2019, ditching of a
Sikorsky S-64E during firefighting operations in Victoria, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) noted that
each crewmember recalled the rehearsed drills from their helicopter underwater escape training (HUET). They identified their seat belt and nearest exit to ori- entate themselves in the aircraft. They all waited until the last moment to draw a breath, and did not unbuckle and exit the helicopter until [its] motion had ceased. The crew reported that it was not possible to see anything underwater, and that jet fuel contamina- tion was present…. HUET enabled the crew to act rationally and decisively when submerged in the cockpit and to use the regularly-practiced drills to escape the aircraft.
56 ROTOR 2020 Q3
HEN THERE ARE ONLY SECONDS in which to respond, thorough drilling in the appropriate procedures can be crucial to
The report also credits the provision of a helmet cord-release mechanism with facilitating their escape, as
neither pilot unplugged their helmet. However, the extension cords from the aircraft to the helmet plug allowed the plug to release, preventing the helmets from snaring the pilots.
Both pilots and the crew chief in the rear-facing aft-
stick seat were able to inflate their life jackets, reach shore under their own power, and hike through “dense bush” to a road, where they were rescued.
The Aircraft and Crew Built by Sikorsky as an S-64 in 1969, the accident aircraft had been upgraded to an S-64E Aircrane. Subsequently operated by Erickson Inc. and registered as N173AC, it boasted two 4,500–shaft horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines and had been fitted with a 2,650-gallon water tank and flexible pond snorkel for water-bombing mis- sions. The snorkel’s dedicated high-pressure pump could fill the tank in about 30 seconds, requiring only about a 45-second hover. Erickson’s website advertises that the S-64E can drop up to 25,000 gallons per hour from a dip site suitably close to the drop site. Describing the crew as experienced would be a sub- stantial understatement. The more senior of the two
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