FLY SAFE By Christine Knauer
When Objects Go Airborne How eliminating FOD can save lives and aircraft.
I
T’S HARD TO IMAGINE that a rotor-ingested ball cap, towel, piece of rope, or, as in the recent case of
an Airbus EC135 P2+ landing at an Illinois airport, a cloth fire extinguisher cover, could result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and months of down- time. But in the wake of such misfortune, there’s good news: the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) inves- tigations show that accidents from foreign object debris (FOD) can often be avoided.
A Hazard on and above Ground The EC135 P2+ accident offers a great example of a lesson in preventing FOD. Shortly before touchdown, the main rotor wash blew the cover off a fire extinguisher sitting on the nearby mobile fueling sta- tion. As the helicopter’s Fenestron ingested the cloth cover, its metal hub cover detached and was also ingested, causing substantial damage. While indus- try experts have formally requested that Fenestron hub cover securement be rede- signed by the manufacturer, the fact remains that FOD created the hazardous situation in the first place. “The helicopter was down for four or
five months for repairs. The whole tail boom had to be replaced, and because of the sudden stoppage, we had to deal with potential transmission damage,” says Tony Bonham, VP of aviation for Air Evac Lifeteam, which operates 175 air ambu- lances from 160 bases across 18 states. “Plus, we had delays in getting parts.”
When conducting hundreds of flights
every year, it’s easy for crews to overlook something or momentarily misjudge the power of a rotorcraft’s vortices. In a 2014 accident in California, a high-time
58 ROTOR SEPTEMBER 2023
WATCH
how ingestion of a fire extinguisher cover substantially damaged an EC135
An Airbus EC135 P2+ sustained substantial damage to its Fenestron assembly when a cover was blown off of a fire extinguisher and ingested into the tail rotor. The entire tail boom had to be replaced. (NTSB Photo)
commercial pilot put his jacket inside an unzipped backpack and placed a stowed door on top of it. The jacket was “sucked from the back seat of the aircraft and out the window,” catching in the tail rotor, according to the NTSB’s accident investigation report. In that case, the pilot was seriously injured, and the Hughes 369D he was fly- ing was substantially damaged. The tail boom severed, the left-side landing gear collapsed, multiple window panels broke, and all main rotor blades, aircraft doors, and the belly of the helicopter incurred damage.
Digging deeper into the NTSB’s investi- gation reports shows that FOD ingestion doesn’t always happen midair or immedi- ately before touchdown. It can occur after landing during engine cooldown, as it did in two notable cases in 2012, one involv- ing an AS350 B2 in Alaska and the other an R22 Beta in Minnesota. Both times, a tarp lifted into the tail rotor just prior to shutdown and substantially damaged the
aircraft. In the Minnesota accident, a fire erupted and the pilot suffered burns to his face and head.
Learning from FOD Accidents For Air Evac Lifeteam and every other ver- tical lift operator, FOD accidents are a stark reminder that even small unsecured objects can gravely compromise safety. “It was a very expensive event but,
thankfully, no one was hurt and there was no loss of life. We learned from it. When something like this happens, we work with other air ambulance operators and share information, because every accident affects all of us,” says Bonham. In the case of the EC135 P2+, opportu-
nities to avoid the accident existed at sev- eral points. The person last inspecting the fire extinguisher could have secured the cloth cover under the metal band as was common practice for the organization. The crew member at the landing site could have checked that items on the fueling station were fixed in place or securely
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
