NTSB PHOTO
ACCIDENT RECOVERY
By David Jack Kenny
Risky Business Why do experienced pilots ignore obvious hazards?
valleys. You’re not familiar with the destina- tion, but you’re very familiar with the 50-year- old helicopter and have the benefit of military flight training leading to a decades-long career of low-altitude law enforcement and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions. Three new electronic flight displays were
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installed in the aircraft’s instrument panel barely three months ago. The weather condi- tions don’t pose undue problems. Given all these circumstances, you should be pre- pared to determine whether it’s safer to fly high or stay low, right?
The Flight Ten minutes before 6:00 pm local time on Jan. 17, 2018, a Vietnam-era Bell UH-1H Huey lifted off from New Mexico’s Raton Municipal Airport (KRTN), carrying five passengers to a private gathering on a ranch about 35 miles east, near the town of Folsom. Civil evening twi- light had ended 15 minutes earlier and the night was dark, with a setting crescent moon providing “0%” illu- mination, according to the US Naval Observatory. However, skies were clear. Visibility was officially reported as 10 miles but essentially unlimited. Roughly 10 minutes after takeoff, the helicopter’s skids ran onto the top of a mesa barely 100 feet higher than the surrounding desert. The Huey slid across the mesa for 110 yards before one main rotor blade hit the ground, leaving a 25-foot scar. The entire main rotor assembly separated and came to rest 20 yards farther along, close to the tail rotor and its gearbox. The cabin tumbled another 66 feet before rolling to a stop upside down and catching fire. The one passenger who survived was hospitalized with a broken shoulder and broken arm. She told investi- gators that “the stars were very bright” and that there was no turbulence during the flight. The investigators reported that the surviving passen- ger recalled “no unusual noises, no observed warning
lights” and that “everything appeared normal.… [They] were in level flight when she heard a big bang as the helicopter hit the ground.” When the aircraft came to a stop, the passenger was
left hanging upside down from her seat belt with jet fuel pouring over her but was able to release her belt and escape the wreckage as the helicopter caught fire. Several explosions followed, and the passenger man- aged to call 911 to report the crash. Temperatures were near freezing (1ºC at departure
from Raton). The other four passengers, including a 3,140-hour commercial helicopter pilot with 120 hours of UH-1H experience, died before the first responders reached the scene two hours later. The pilot survived long enough to be rescued but succumbed during trans- port. He told one first responder that “it was all his fault and he flew into terrain.”
The Aircraft A Bell UH-1H, serial number 67-17658, the helicopter was built in 1967 and served the US government for nearly 30 years before being released by the General Services Administration in May 1996. Seven different civilian operators bought, flew, and sold the aircraft before it was acquired by its final owners in February 2017. During that time, the model’s type certificate (TC)
WINTER 2020 ROTOR 71
The main wreckage at Raton, New Mexico, Jan. 17, 2018.
T’S DARK—VERY DARK. THE TRIP IS a short hop with passengers through mountainous country sliced by narrow
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