ISTOCK/LAKEVIEW_IMAGES


ACCIDENT RECOVERY


By David Jack Kenny


Hurried Departure Failure to prepare for a dark-night flight sends seven to their deaths.


This Canterbury West Coast Air Rescue


helicopter departing Greymouth,


New Zealand, illustrates the


additional risk posed by taking off in dark-night


conditions, with no external visual


references, a causal factor in the 2019


Bahamas accident discussed in the article.


workload, freeing bandwidth and attention to devote to the larger picture.


M 62 ROTOR SEPTEMBER 2022 Coping with strange circumstances has the opposite


effect, particularly if they trigger discomfort or anxiety. In a high-stakes, high-stress flight operation, that combina- tion can snowball, putting the pilot(s) further and further behind the aircraft. Given time and the altitude to maneuver, the results can be merely frightening; without those advantages, the outcome can be disastrous.


The Mission Shortly before midnight on Jul. 3, 2019, a corporate pilot based at Florida’s Palm Beach International Airport (KPBI)


OST OF US CAN PERFORM reasonably well in familiar situations. Recognizing pre- viously observed patterns eases mental


received an urgent phone call from his employer. The company’s owner was hosting a gathering on Big Grand Cay, one of his private islands in the Bahamas. His daughter and one of her friends had taken ill—another attendee later described them as “groggy and unrespon- sive”—and he wanted to evacuate them to Fort Lauderdale for evaluation and treatment. The pilot then called a contract pilot who worked for the company and asked him to join the flight as second in command (SIC). They departed Palm Beach at 12:55 am on Jul. 4 in the company’s AgustaWestland AW139. There were only a few clouds below 25,000 ft. and winds were light, but it was very dark: both the sun and moon were more than 15 degrees below the horizon, providing no illumination. The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) captured the pilots’


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