...that ch147 could have been given to izzreal, do you love izzreal? In their very moral and proportionate efforts in defending themselves from sleeping toddlers, nosey journalists and other non humanitarian aid workers.
Great video Mover, but a sad one. I’ve been flying helo’s for 36 years, had some really close calls and only by Gods grace did we survive. I’ve got a lot of time in the 47D, did a lot of special ops missions NVG over water. RadAlt hold is very important below 1000ft over water for this very reason. But, as a pilot you must train with and without automation. Automation is amazing when it works, when it stops working you have to be able to hand fly your bird. What ever maneuver I do, I do it twice. Once using all available automation, once manually. I now fly SAR in a S-92, at night we are always goggled up. We got called out for a heart attack mission, at night, 287 miles offshore on a boat. For some reason our auto hover mode kept kicking our AFCS system off, so I had to do the hoisting manually at night under goggles to retrieve the patient. I said a prayer and was happy that we had practiced the manual stuff. Call outs are very important in a 2 man crew and should be made every time you do anything and verified by the other Pilot. IP:36* right turn, 500ft, 100kts, no automation You have the controls, SP:I have the controls, IP:you have the controls. SP: climbing to 1000ft, IP:Roger climbing 1000ft( after he checks positive rate of climb). Also for a new aircraft transition, especially one that is full glass cockpit like the “F” model with a student, it is very easy to get task and sensory overloaded by all the info you are looking at from the instruments and mess up or miss read your cross check. My kids asked me one day, are you ever scared when you fly? I responded with “only when the engines are running”.
You sound like a good person....I can't imagine how difficult it is to navigate with NVGs NVM while flying. I think Mover did a great job explaining everything to someone who has never been inside a cockpit. Your comment was also very informative. I am an Airforce brat so the automatic respect for pilots is engrained in me. They sacrifice a lot for their ground troops. Spacial disorientation, and fatigue is definitely scary. Definitely not a safe job at all...
@@Kim-is-here-j9o Thank you for such a pleasant response. Mover is always great at explaining things, probably from his time as an instructor Pilot. Tell your parent or parents thank you for their service. You seem like a very good person with a really good attitude.
Thanks for covering this mover, relatively local crash here, the 450th does low level navigation through the mountains here at home, and we've done some training with them (civi fire side). It was a rough period while they searched for the missing crew
Thanks for covering the accident. It was a horrible night with the loss of close friend's and one of the most talented flight instructors I've had the privilege to fly with. We at 450 lost some close friends that night. It's a tight community. Blue Sky's C.W. Lemoine.
Thanks for covering this Mover. As someone who lives about two hours from where this happened, it's appreciated to finally know at least some of the "why". I also live about 5mins from CFB Trenton and I can tell you, friends of mine were pretty understandably upset when this went down. Appreciate the objectivity and thoroughness as always.
Thank you for your debriefing of this tragic incident. It’s very important to be incredibly honest during debriefing as it is very hard on individuals who are at the centre. The one thing that should never be overlooked is the very positive impact that these debriefing bring to making future events better and safer for many, some of whom will benefit. Mike
My neighbor was a CH-47 pilot for 20+ years. He's bragged about how easy the Chinook was to fly compared to the other military choppers. So sad to see one of these go down. RIP soldiers.
Always love your accident reviews. You bring the experience of multiple airframes, as well as, just running through the analysis. It gives a level of humanity to a sterile report.
Very informative , I was in Petawawa on that date. People in the campground heard the impact. Tragic loss but insightful critique of the report. Thanks again
You can't macho through spatial disorientation. It was an eye opening experience the first time my instructor took me right into a situation where I swore I was wings level but, in reality, I was in a nose down, left bank spiral. Holy sh^t.
Unfortunate accident. As an RAF ex-Chinook engineer for over 17 years with about 30 years in total on the fleet (including contracting work) I always sat on the right side of the cabin whenever possible. Chatting with a BH crash investigator the right side has a better survivability rate as the rotor blades impact the left side in an impact (due to the blades direction of rotation) plus the cabin door is front right so you could be thrown out or egress the cabin easier. A bit morbid perhaps, but accidents are a realistic possibility when doing this type of stuff!
Thank you, Mover, for going over this tragic mishap with us, my prayers go out to all the survivors. On another note, I see the Christmas tree has been erected, nice very nice.
This all happened 10 minutes from my house. The communities of Petawawa and Pembroke were deeply affected by this incident. Two small towns situated by the base equals a tight nit community
Back in the 80s, my father's best friend was killed when the crew flew their Ch-46 into the water off the coast of San Diego. The investigation concluded that both pilots were focusing on a malfunction indicator, leaving nobody to fly the aircraft. Same scenario as well (night, no moon, no visual PoR, and possibily a bit of disorientation as well.) Regrettably, that 40 years later, practically the same thing just happened.
my take, for what little it’s worth, is that this is less an SD accident, and more likely a CFIT due to cockpit distractions. I’m a long time H47 pilot (2k+ hours in E and G models). The CAAS cockpit in the F/G variants are highly susceptible to having pilots “sucked-in” when making nav and flightplan related entries. I’ve been there myself a few times. Thankfully nothing tragic happened, but the debriefs could be brutal, and rightly so.
Thankyou for covering this one. I watched the recovery efforts that night from across the river, and have since been down to see where the crash site was. I'm glad to see it getting the recognition it deservers.
My second to last flight I had in the CH47F we chipped an engine. Shut it down and flew home. Any of these Chinook mishaps are upsetting. I loved the aircraft and the mission. The F model has great automation. When we flew at night over water, using Radar Altitude hold was common. Its just under your thumb on the TCL. So many automation modes to help you when you are tired. I was an IP, and yes, we beat people up (oral eval) in the cockpit on occasion. Some IPs did it much more than others. But it was very common to continue the oral evaluation into the cockpit as they continued the flight evaluation.
Yea I'm with Mover on this, that seems like a really bad idea to me, especially in critical phases of flight. When you shut down an engine, how much power do you lose (obviously 50% but I mean practically) as in, I presume no hover at normal weights, etc? How does that effect your landings? I know nothing about rotary wing contraptions! 😂
@@MattH-wg7ou Sure, no reason to press an oral aval in critical phases. Just that we did continue it in the cockpit in the Army. Anyway, yea, lose and engine and lose 50% of your power. The chinook is a beast with over 5000hp in each engine, so continuing to fly isnt an issue in most cases. As for landing, we practised a roll on landing (much like an airplane). It would minimize the power required to land.
Yeah I’d say oral eval continuing into the flight portion is popular in the Army. I (Army IP) was never big on overloading a student with EPs / limits while flying but the technique does have its merits. For instance, if a student can’t fly at cruise and recite basic rules / regs in the airspace they’re flying in, then there’s probably a gap in knowledge. Also, by pushing a student (within reason), it will force them to manage tasks and will have rewards later on down the road when they are truly task saturation such as in combat. Now I’m not going to say we multitask because there are those that say it’s impossible but the simple fact is, where are doing multiple tasks in quick order. The ability of a student to answer questions while still maintaining flight standards (altitude, airspeed, heading), is an important indicator on how quickly they’ll become PIC. No different than the ability to talk to ATC and manage flight control tasks at the same time. Having said all that, I could always tell if a student had the knowledge to move on to the next phase simple because if the oral eval before flight. No reason to bring out their lack of knowledge during flight.
I almost drove a rental car into the Ottawa river on a moonless night. I was on a road that went towards the river and I intended to turn onto a road parallel to the river... but i missed the turn and the road i was on continued into a parking lot with a boat launch at the end. I only realized I realized that something was wrong because i noticed there was nothing but black in front of me and i stopped about 30m/100ft from the river.
The primary recommendation was to use the native DAFCS modes when over water at low altitude. With the advent of the CH-47F (CH-147F), the aircraft will fly itself in that mode of flight, but not enough instructor pilots enforce the use of the automation. The US Army does it the same way. The Canadian Chinooks are flown by their Air Force. During the aircraft qualification course, we emphatically stressed using the computers to reduce pilot workload. The safety factor makes all the difference, as evidenced by this crash.
Those higher control modes were tailor made for degraded visual environment flight (DVE). NVG is DVE; especially if you get your self pointed away from cultural lighting on a moonless night (and over water).
This happened in my town in Petawawa on the Ottawa River. Tragic. Some of the stuff Ive seen the 427 SOAS do in their Ch146 Griffons is downright asspucker flying.
Wouldn't have helped unfortunately, which even the AAI report mentions. Stating that while if he'd used more of an immediate "Emergency Warning" tone or Phrasing, the severity of the crash might've been lessened a bit; the fact remains that the rate of decent was too high especially at that altitude to have avoided a catastrophic impact with the water. So even if they'd immediately shoved the cyclic to max power and yanked the stick back/nose up to try and flare their decent, you don't just stop instantly, you've still got to reduce your rate of decent all the way to "0" and THEN start climbing; which there simply wasn't time for regardless of their reaction speed once they were only 20ft AGL at their rate of decent.
Another way to think about the effectiveness of the FE's altitude warning (in no way am I faulting it, as it is what it is or what it was in all things considered), would be to convert the rate of descent into mph, then put yourself behind the wheel of a truck traveling at the same speed. Then, imagine if your GPS tells you your next turn is in 20 feet.
In the Navy MH-60 Seahawk community we have a number of controls to prevent this type of of overwater CFIT at night/IMC to include an overwater hard deck of 100 ft aided (unless doing an automatic approach to a coupled hover no lower than 70 ft), RADALT altitude hold use mandatory below 1000 ft over water during night/IMC, not exceeding a standard rate turn and verbalizing if you are, a standard NATOPS procedure for any night/IMC descents over water, use of and acknowledgment of LAWS DH tones and so on. Sad and preventable mishap.
Why would they instinctively turn off the rad alt warning? That infers it goes off all the time in a descent condition that is not alarm worthy. Sad story.
I've seen the same thing in the C-130 with the Master Caution light. Crew is supposed to verbalize why it came on before turning it off, but in some circumstances it's coming on so often that we get conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to push the button and turn it off. So, occasionally when it comes on it gets turned off reflexively without really acknowledging why it came on.
@@crazypetec-130fe7 Ignored/or disable "nuisance" alarms are frequently the cause of accidents/disasters. On most airliners, GPWS terrain alarm is disabled when a plane is configured for landing so it doesn't go off.
Normalization of deviance I bet. Flipping those switches can become such an automatic action at a certain point once you’ve done it enough. It’s how brains work. It’s pattern recognition. Brain hears something, brain does something because that’s what it did the last 300 times. It’s a fatal flaw in living things but in the wilderness, it keeps you alive. Our senses are evolved to help us run and fight. Not to fly planes and helis so I totally understand why these issues are so hard to fix
@@dash0173 Understood. But what I don't get is if the rad alt warning is going off, and it creates this condition where I just turn it off every time, doesn't that mean it shouldn't be going off under certain conditions anyway? And if it's a real problem it'll actually be a legit warning?
@@BobSmith-mu5kg Yes and no. I believe the system should go off anytime certain parameters are met and in this case, parameters were met. The issue with the alt warning creating an environment where you simply just turn it off can be circumvented by simply being aware of your surroundings to the utmost degree and obviously thats not possible all the time but thats where the human factor comes in. What these guys experienced WAS a real problem, a massive one actually. The alert system, in this specific situation, was not equipped to alert the pilots to the changing altitude given how close they were to the water and given the fact that they "acknowledged" the warning. From the perspective of what the on-board computer understands, them acknowledging the alert and then continuing the descent effectively tells the computer it's an intended descent(not that there's a system to prevent an unintended descent anyways, at least not to my knowledge.) but effectively, even having a system to prevent this kind of thing, it would basically have to be able to interpret the pilots intentions and thats not possible without being a cyborg
I live up there and stayed after I got out of the army, know a couple guys in the squadron and remember when this happened. I think the biggest take away from the report is the highlighting of just how bad the state of the emergency readiness response was. I get that everything is underfunded but the base as a whole was simply not ready for for this sort of accident, especially given how busy it is and next to a river is appalling
What they failed to mention is how they conduct NVG failure. The FE actually comes forward into the cockpit and disconnects or shuts off the goggles. The emergency is to pass control to the pilot with functioning goggles. The SP then goes through his immediate actions whilst the IP should level the aircraft. The IP was in a turn when the SP completed the emergency and regains control. There is no step to allow the SP to regain spatial control and situational awareness while their eyes readjusts from going blind. This emergency is not well thought out, when and how to conduct. It’s overlooked as simply passing control, turn the battery on and regain control. Goggles usually don’t just turn off by the switch, it would be a depletion of the battery and would require a swap out. You wouldn’t be doing this in a situation close to the ground. This is an error of the RCAF training system, they haven’t adapted the curriculum to accept real world situations that require critical thinking vice spitting out emergency responses on the checklist. Shame.
I remember when I was up CFB Greenwood for air cadets, a staff cadet who was in charge of range safety almost accidentally hit a CH-149 Cormorant with a model rocket. He was just kinda along on the trip where we were launching model rockets we made, and he had his own which he almost hit the helicopter with. I’m pretty sure the dude in charge of running the entire air cadet operation in CFB Greenwood was with us too, or at least he was like the 2nd in command for that. Just a more light hearted story to lift up the mood.
The Canadian Forces don’t segregate into Army, Navy, Air Force pilots. They are all Air Force that work in the respective branches. Aircrew training is homogeneous and standardized no matter what branch the flying is occurring with.
Great video and great analysis. You do a good job of providing the facts, injecting your opinions, but avoiding judgement. One minor comment is a human can survive a 60g impact, though it does require some carefully constructed restraints. In Formula 1, Romaine Grosjean's crash was 67g which he walked away from, a couple of NASCAR crashes were around 90g and the drivers... limped away, and Kenny Brack (barely) survived a 214g crash. I believe the keys are the head and neck restraint, and holding the body in place well enough to avoid impacts against hard objects during the crash. Unfortunately HANS devices are a bit restrictive, so I don't see air crews adopting those. Further, given the crew survived and not the pilots, I suspect part of the pilot's injuries were due to the airframe flexing leading to the pilots impacting the instrument panel, and making the airframe strong enough to sustain such a hit would be too heavy to fly. I wonder if there would be any value in a "roll cage" or similar protection feature around the pilots to protect them in a crash, but crashes are rare enough these days I think the primary safety feature is not crashing.
Thanks for the report! All very interesting. I remember the crash and thought it was just a regular exercise. And not actually a course. Been to CFB Petawawa several times when I was in the army. And, as a former air force guy too, I fully understand how flying can be dangerous. We lost two pilots over a five year period in our CF-18 squadron. CFB Petawa, though, is a bit unique. It's remote. So, no big city illumination. And it offers both land & water complexity. Which is why the military likes to train there, army and air force. Normally the individual complexity of land and water would be 1+1=2. Combine both together at the same time and it's like 1+1=5. Add nighttime with no moon and it's like 1+1=10.
Night vision goggles are “light amplifiers”. They will not work in a scenario with zero light and low light scenarios where there is little light to amplify they will struggle.
Juan Browne aka Blancolirio on youtube covered that also. He essentially covers every aviation accident in North America and generally most internationally
Limited time pilot here, never been in military training. But in the situation described, it seems to me the pilot flying should have primary responsibility for controlling the aircraft, the monitoring pilot should have responsibility for continuously sweeping the gauges. I believe flying in those conditions is a team sport. As far as I am concerned it was the fault of the IP. IMO, the IP should have been in a third seat. You CANNOT evaluate a student AND execute pilot monitoring responsibilities, especially in critical maneuvers.
Even in lighted conditions, judging height above water with eyes is challenging. It's gotta be even more challenging at night with NVG. Thus, procedures near water should be on instruments. Of course, the IP should have been on top of all this. Very sad loss...
I've experienced spatial disorientation in DCS multiple times, and it's really disconcerting. Everything happens so fast, you second guess yourself and often compound mistakes. I hope the army is helping the families out.
Wow! Taking over control mid-manoeuvre is an extreme challenge. There are two pilots for a reason! Handover of any machine, takes a second or two to fully regain situational awareness and dial in the power setting, direction and attitude, even in level flight and to resume competent control. Had it been a troop transport mission, it would have been a bloodbath. Yet nothing was said about this being an inappropriate pilot swap during a risky phase of the mission for no discernible benefit!
I'm Canadian and have heard nothing about this report in the news, on any major media channel (public or private). Meanwhile they take up the top 15 minutes of a 60 minute broadcast yapping about a goddamn Taylor Swift concert. Clearly a news priority. 🙄 Anyways, I recently saw another video of an accident report where disorientation in the air was a major factor. (Was it a civilian plane ? Was it one of your videos?). Common cause of crashes I suppose. 🙁
Random vr dcs pilot here😂(be nice😅)... with the new "fog" update lastweek ive had a few cases of spacial disorientation in various aircraft, including the chinook. Night flying wasnt too hard before but now with the fog blocking all light its gotten much more challenging. One example, after looking for my wingman, i turned back forwards and instantly my brain was telling me we were banking hard, yet i knew i was in level flight even verifying with instruments by brain just couldnt "see straight"..ended up putting my head down into the cockpit to orient myself with the level of the cockpit sides and focused on the instruments. It was a good 45 seconds or so before i shook it off😅. Its pretty rare for me to have this happen anymore, especially lasting more than a few seconds. This last update has made it all to real again as if just starting out in vr, its probably about as real as it will ever get for me, so i greatly enjoy the sensation when i get it. It may be just a game, but between your story telling and dcs it sure helps put me into the shoes of a real pilot, for both the good and the bad.
This one hits so close to home...my home town (Ottawa), and my colleagues knew some of the victims and were involved in the recovery of the FDR data. As a flight controls engineer it's frustrating that there are flight control modes like ACAH (Attitude Command Attitude Hold) available on the F model 47 and designed specifically for flight in DVE (Degraded Visual Environments)...but that they aren't used instinctively. Unfortunately, it's hard to know how bad the visual cues are until they are just "gone". I would have like to have seen better coverage in the report as to what needs to change in the RCAF to help prevent this sort of accident in the future.
"Quizzing in the airplane is an Army thing, and it's stupid." There's a reason it's called being "Army smart" I miss absolutely nothing about the Army except the few people of whom proved to be human beings. I appreciate the critiquing, maybe the Army will pay attention to how it can improve. It should not take the extremes that it does for change to occur. Very sad, everyone is in my thoughts.
I was talking to a Sea King pilot on a tiger cruise about a decade ago discussing destroyer landings. Naturally I assumed they did this many times in a sim before trying it in real life. Apparently the RCAF had no Sea King sim so the first time they got to practice landing on a rolling flight deck in rough seas was when they landed on a rolling flight deck in rough seas! They do have sims for the Chinook though, at least since 2015. I don't know what they did prior to that.
I have had instructors quiz during civil training. The purpose is to present distractions to the student or rather give the student practice on prioritizing tasks. This obviously has its time and place.
I understand your point. I was just saying that their culture and traditions are air force. But, that squadron may have an army mindset through being stationed on an army base and operating with the army. Great video and analysis. @CWLemoine
Flying at night, low level, wearing nods is dangerous enough. Factor in human factors, weather and a checkride adds more lays of stress. Like any crash/mishap this one will have lessons learned, we can only hope young and old aviators will learn from.
I realise that your point about “Army Aircrew” quizzing during flight was an aside to the main topic, however, the title of the video is an RCAF CH147 Mishap, doesn’t RCAF refer to Royal Canadian Air Force?, if so then were the crew Army, Air Force or a mixed service crew?, or was the “Quizzing” part of the evaluation process?.
@@CWLemoineThanks for clarifying that, I’m an RAF Veteran and spent nearly 14 years on rotary wing aircraft, over 10 years on the CH47 as a aircraft technician, the last 4 years being as a team chief and airborne testing as part of my duties, but I also spent a lot of time as a passenger going to many different locations for exercises and deployments to combat zones, and most of that time I was on headset or flying helmet and can honestly say that I never heard the pilots/crew quizzing each other, but there again during testing I was to busy doing diagnostic tests and as a passenger just listening to the general chatter and crew interactions so I might just have never heard them quizzing each other, but thank you so much for clarifying my enquiry’s/questions, and as always thanks for an excellent review of this accident and all your other videos. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱
@ So what you’re saying is that the RCAF are the only pilots within the Canadian 🇨🇦 military, don’t the Navy operate their own aircraft?, or the Army have their own Aviation Corp?, and don’t have exchange pilots and crew members, I would have thought that they did, in with case it could have been a mixed crew made up of members of the Canadian military or from different allied countries, we did have quite a lot of exchange pilots etc when I was in the RAF, both on fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Sorry if I’m sounding a bit stupid here, I was just trying to get a clearer picture of what the crew composition was or could have been. Thanks very much for taking the time to reply, very much appreciated and welcome. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱
Agreed. Quizzing the student while flying, especially at low level is not a good idea. It doesn't really accomplish anything. Also, 18 months? Really? That training schedule is ridiculous
I think it's a helicopter thing more than an army thing to turn the cockpit into a knowledge check. Every flight if Navy helicopter training had some sort of simulated EP or systems question on our way out to the field for pattern work. Basic instrument and actual instrument flights always worked some EP in IMC and how to correctly trouble shoot it. The intensity and frequency of the simulated EPs increased as we progressed in the syllabus getting closer to check rides.
The in situ quizzing is the worst classroom even outside of aircraft usage. I've had fellow instructors in land leadership courses who would start quizzing candidates in the middle of simulated firefights or other situations which ruins the training value of the simulation and severely reduces the accuracy of assessments. A classroom is the best classroom, if you're unsure of a candidates subject knowledge in a scenario then you failed as an instructor.
they don't gall it the Great Green Death Banana for nothing! (during my time in UKAF, members of the same family were not allowed on the same Chinook... due to an incident that actually just about wiped out an entire family.. if I recall cotrectly why that restriction was put in place). I never enjoyed rides in it... luckily Merlins were more my steed (wasn't in the Army!)... and Pumas. They are loud and uncomfortable even for military heavy lift 😂. Felt like you were getting slapped on the head repeatedly inside a barrel full of gravel.
Both the IP and Student recieved two warnings about height, which they completely ignored! Their final warning, from the Crew Members in the back, stating "20 Feet, Above" was one that they should immediately have acted on to address their descent. Ultimately, the responsibility lay with the IP, whose inaction endangered the aircraft and Crew Members! A multi-million dollar aircraft and two Crew Members were lost in this entirely foreseeable and preventable CFIT.
Flying at night will take your life in a second! For the civilian pilots out there, take these lessons to heart and treat night flying as IFR! Spatial disorientation is no joke!
The inkwell effect got another one. If there is high overcast blocking the stars and moon and out over water with no ground lights or visual ground references, you cannot see the water, can't see the sky references, you are IFR in clear air and it kills a lot of pilots because they do not realize what is happening. I have always been amazed that we do not loose more Navy pilots like this. I am betting that is way we lost that F-15E in the Gulf War.
I don't know if this is related or not but I was reading a gun forum recently and someone posted a question about chamber pressure of a shotgun and all the responses were just ridiculing and talking down to the guy for asking such a question the message from the respondents was that only a total dweeb would care about the chamber pressure of a shotgun. Could the helicopter power level vs bank angle be similar ?
The questioning during flight would be the constant realistic distractions. You as the individual flying have to have at the center of your attention to fly the aircrafts mission which doesn't include crashing.
Unlike the US army flying rotary wing the RCAF helo pilots are Air Force pilots. As a 777 check pilot I agree there is a time and a place for knowledge questions and where they did it causes an unwanted threat.
Agreed. All stump the chump does is insert confusion and incorrect data into a pipeline while the trainee is trying to solidify all the steps and processes they should do. It should never be done during a real world event unless the immediate goal is the removal of the trainee from the task. So someone had the bright idea to declare a failed NVG simulation while in a turn.... fine. Why the hell would they return controls while still in the turn to the guy who was previously distracted.... get out of the turn first. I'm going to take a stab at the guy messing with his NVG's is not paying attention to the altitude or lack there-of, and didn't notice it when he re-assumed control. Flicking off the elevation warning ... to me, indicates they were in the "Yeah, I know" level of dismissiveness due to the many times they were doing landings and the low level operations. This isn't a spatial awareness issue... this is poor training/SOP's/guidelines. Not handing returning controls over to the pilot who had the "malfunction" in a low level maneuver or not dismissing the low level alarm and this wouldn't have happened.
I finally understood "spacial disorientation" to be thinking you know where you are, but you are wrong The problem is really nasty because you know where you are so why change your behavior?
@ thanks for making the video. Unfortunately our airforce is not very experienced and the pilots are very low time. Lucky to get 1-200 hours per year with very long gaps between flights at times. Even with 4000hr behind me when I went flying a bomber 100hr a year I felt my skills decline.
Doesnt appear to me that the backenders were engaged enough on the flight. There were plenty of times in that sequence that an active backender should have been questioning the pilots and making callouts. 2000 fpm? Wow.
Before taxi checks are a result of not starting with a ground crew. It's really not a big deal. Air force fly differently, that's okay, army has a different set of consids to contend with. Thinking it's dumb when you don't have full context is pretty short sighted.
Not at all. I said the concept of quizzing in the aircraft is dumb. I stand by that as a professional pilot who has flown for over 23 years. The cockpit is the worst classroom. Quizzing in the aircraft is dumb. No context changes that.
@@CWLemoine Ahh I didnt realise you were talking specifically about quizzes I thought you meant the checks. I thought it was odd that I disagreed with you for the first time. My mistake.
Honestly the whole thing sounds like a mess, Massive time gaps in tying to close training. In a banking turn, not enough thrust, dinking around with NVGs in low light, in a full decent. It all screams lack of awareness for how to produce functional pilots. They should have been required to run this mission in a simulator first to perfection across all light types, then roll though it in the air right afterwards.
I don’t like helicopters in general. I have flown as self-loading cargo in five different types. Only one, the CH-47, made me want to kiss the tarmac after we landed.
RWY 5 KCLT Approach crosses very large lake. Dark night even with rwy in full view it really messes with your depth perception. I always hated that approach. Thankfully it wasn't used very often.
Just a comment point of view: Our inability to provide consistent quality training to our pilots is giving credence to the unmanned aircraft knuckleheads. We’re screwing ourselves in a very bad way. Pilots need to fly in a more consistent and focused environment with minimized interference. This was a sad example of inconsistency with a fatal outcome.
Yah it’s tough. Inconsistency is part of being a human. It’s part of being a living organism actually. Even robots aren’t perfect. There are simply too many variable to control them all and without the ability to control them all, it’s impossible to be perfect. There will always be that one person that deviates from the norm and all it takes is a single event to change everything
As a Canadian living not too far from that base, I appreciate the discussion and explanations on this sad event. 🇨🇦
...that ch147 could have been given to izzreal, do you love izzreal? In their very moral and proportionate efforts in defending themselves from sleeping toddlers, nosey journalists and other non humanitarian aid workers.
Great video Mover, but a sad one. I’ve been flying helo’s for 36 years, had some really close calls and only by Gods grace did we survive. I’ve got a lot of time in the 47D, did a lot of special ops missions NVG over water. RadAlt hold is very important below 1000ft over water for this very reason. But, as a pilot you must train with and without automation. Automation is amazing when it works, when it stops working you have to be able to hand fly your bird. What ever maneuver I do, I do it twice. Once using all available automation, once manually. I now fly SAR in a S-92, at night we are always goggled up. We got called out for a heart attack mission, at night, 287 miles offshore on a boat. For some reason our auto hover mode kept kicking our AFCS system off, so I had to do the hoisting manually at night under goggles to retrieve the patient. I said a prayer and was happy that we had practiced the manual stuff. Call outs are very important in a 2 man crew and should be made every time you do anything and verified by the other Pilot. IP:36* right turn, 500ft, 100kts, no automation You have the controls, SP:I have the controls, IP:you have the controls. SP: climbing to 1000ft, IP:Roger climbing 1000ft( after he checks positive rate of climb). Also for a new aircraft transition, especially one that is full glass cockpit like the “F” model with a student, it is very easy to get task and sensory overloaded by all the info you are looking at from the instruments and mess up or miss read your cross check. My kids asked me one day, are you ever scared when you fly? I responded with “only when the engines are running”.
You sound like a good person....I can't imagine how difficult it is to navigate with NVGs NVM while flying. I think Mover did a great job explaining everything to someone who has never been inside a cockpit. Your comment was also very informative. I am an Airforce brat so the automatic respect for pilots is engrained in me. They sacrifice a lot for their ground troops. Spacial disorientation, and fatigue is definitely scary. Definitely not a safe job at all...
@@Kim-is-here-j9o Thank you for such a pleasant response. Mover is always great at explaining things, probably from his time as an instructor Pilot. Tell your parent or parents thank you for their service. You seem like a very good person with a really good attitude.
@@chinookMMA Oh I definitely have a bad side. I served in the Army post 9/11. I'm a good person but my mouth gets me in trouble.
Thanks for covering this mover, relatively local crash here, the 450th does low level navigation through the mountains here at home, and we've done some training with them (civi fire side). It was a rough period while they searched for the missing crew
Thanks for covering the accident. It was a horrible night with the loss of close friend's and one of the most talented flight instructors I've had the privilege to fly with. We at 450 lost some close friends that night. It's a tight community. Blue Sky's C.W. Lemoine.
Thanks for covering this Mover. As someone who lives about two hours from where this happened, it's appreciated to finally know at least some of the "why". I also live about 5mins from CFB Trenton and I can tell you, friends of mine were pretty understandably upset when this went down. Appreciate the objectivity and thoroughness as always.
Sad ... RIP those that perished.
Thx Mover...
Thank you for your debriefing of this tragic incident. It’s very important to be incredibly honest during debriefing as it is very hard on individuals who are at the centre. The one thing that should never be overlooked is the very positive impact that these debriefing bring to making future events better and safer for many, some of whom will benefit. Mike
My neighbor was a CH-47 pilot for 20+ years. He's bragged about how easy the Chinook was to fly compared to the other military choppers. So sad to see one of these go down. RIP soldiers.
Always love your accident reviews.
You bring the experience of multiple airframes, as well as, just running through the analysis. It gives a level of humanity to a sterile report.
Very informative , I was in Petawawa on that date. People in the campground heard the impact. Tragic loss but insightful critique of the report. Thanks again
You can't macho through spatial disorientation. It was an eye opening experience the first time my instructor took me right into a situation where I swore I was wings level but, in reality, I was in a nose down, left bank spiral. Holy sh^t.
Great show as always, Sir.
Unfortunate accident. As an RAF ex-Chinook engineer for over 17 years with about 30 years in total on the fleet (including contracting work) I always sat on the right side of the cabin whenever possible. Chatting with a BH crash investigator the right side has a better survivability rate as the rotor blades impact the left side in an impact (due to the blades direction of rotation) plus the cabin door is front right so you could be thrown out or egress the cabin easier. A bit morbid perhaps, but accidents are a realistic possibility when doing this type of stuff!
i wonder if the apu wud fire up ..
Thank you, Mover, for going over this tragic mishap with us, my prayers go out to all the survivors. On another note, I see the Christmas tree has been erected, nice very nice.
Thank you for covering Canadian aviation. ⚔️
This all happened 10 minutes from my house. The communities of Petawawa and Pembroke were deeply affected by this incident. Two small towns situated by the base equals a tight nit community
I was a Naval Aviator for 24 years and an airline pilot for 19 years, this guy is spot on!
Thanks!
Back in the 80s, my father's best friend was killed when the crew flew their Ch-46 into the water off the coast of San Diego. The investigation concluded that both pilots were focusing on a malfunction indicator, leaving nobody to fly the aircraft. Same scenario as well (night, no moon, no visual PoR, and possibily a bit of disorientation as well.) Regrettably, that 40 years later, practically the same thing just happened.
my take, for what little it’s worth, is that this is less an SD accident, and more likely a CFIT due to cockpit distractions. I’m a long time H47 pilot (2k+ hours in E and G models). The CAAS cockpit in the F/G variants are highly susceptible to having pilots “sucked-in” when making nav and flightplan related entries. I’ve been there myself a few times. Thankfully nothing tragic happened, but the debriefs could be brutal, and rightly so.
Excellent analysis. Having an experienced pilot explain some of the dangers of spacial disorientation when night flying is very valuable to hear.
Thankyou for covering this one. I watched the recovery efforts that night from across the river, and have since been down to see where the crash site was. I'm glad to see it getting the recognition it deservers.
My second to last flight I had in the CH47F we chipped an engine. Shut it down and flew home. Any of these Chinook mishaps are upsetting. I loved the aircraft and the mission. The F model has great automation. When we flew at night over water, using Radar Altitude hold was common. Its just under your thumb on the TCL. So many automation modes to help you when you are tired. I was an IP, and yes, we beat people up (oral eval) in the cockpit on occasion. Some IPs did it much more than others. But it was very common to continue the oral evaluation into the cockpit as they continued the flight evaluation.
" I'm trying to fly the aircraft sir in very trying cicumstances, so with all due respect, STFU !! ".
Yea I'm with Mover on this, that seems like a really bad idea to me, especially in critical phases of flight.
When you shut down an engine, how much power do you lose (obviously 50% but I mean practically) as in, I presume no hover at normal weights, etc? How does that effect your landings? I know nothing about rotary wing contraptions! 😂
@@MattH-wg7ou Sure, no reason to press an oral aval in critical phases. Just that we did continue it in the cockpit in the Army. Anyway, yea, lose and engine and lose 50% of your power. The chinook is a beast with over 5000hp in each engine, so continuing to fly isnt an issue in most cases. As for landing, we practised a roll on landing (much like an airplane). It would minimize the power required to land.
Great job mover, so sad for the families.
Yeah I’d say oral eval continuing into the flight portion is popular in the Army. I (Army IP) was never big on overloading a student with EPs / limits while flying but the technique does have its merits. For instance, if a student can’t fly at cruise and recite basic rules / regs in the airspace they’re flying in, then there’s probably a gap in knowledge. Also, by pushing a student (within reason), it will force them to manage tasks and will have rewards later on down the road when they are truly task saturation such as in combat. Now I’m not going to say we multitask because there are those that say it’s impossible but the simple fact is, where are doing multiple tasks in quick order. The ability of a student to answer questions while still maintaining flight standards (altitude, airspeed, heading), is an important indicator on how quickly they’ll become PIC. No different than the ability to talk to ATC and manage flight control tasks at the same time.
Having said all that, I could always tell if a student had the knowledge to move on to the next phase simple because if the oral eval before flight. No reason to bring out their lack of knowledge during flight.
I almost drove a rental car into the Ottawa river on a moonless night. I was on a road that went towards the river and I intended to turn onto a road parallel to the river... but i missed the turn and the road i was on continued into a parking lot with a boat launch at the end. I only realized I realized that something was wrong because i noticed there was nothing but black in front of me and i stopped about 30m/100ft from the river.
that boat launch might be a good place for one of those diving channels to check out
The primary recommendation was to use the native DAFCS modes when over water at low altitude. With the advent of the CH-47F (CH-147F), the aircraft will fly itself in that mode of flight, but not enough instructor pilots enforce the use of the automation. The US Army does it the same way. The Canadian Chinooks are flown by their Air Force. During the aircraft qualification course, we emphatically stressed using the computers to reduce pilot workload. The safety factor makes all the difference, as evidenced by this crash.
Those higher control modes were tailor made for degraded visual environment flight (DVE). NVG is DVE; especially if you get your self pointed away from cultural lighting on a moonless night (and over water).
Thank you for the update.
This happened in my town in Petawawa on the Ottawa River. Tragic. Some of the stuff Ive seen the 427 SOAS do in their Ch146 Griffons is downright asspucker flying.
427 are the crazies. But then again, what I saw 408 do in their Kiowas back in the 1990s would make for some pucker factor.
@@GrizzAxxemann To be fair the Kiowas were a hell of a lot easier to fly then the Griffon.
@@MetaliCanuck No argument there.
Lesson learned: always listen to the FE. Especially if he's saying you're 20 ft off the water.
Wouldn't have helped unfortunately, which even the AAI report mentions. Stating that while if he'd used more of an immediate "Emergency Warning" tone or Phrasing, the severity of the crash might've been lessened a bit; the fact remains that the rate of decent was too high especially at that altitude to have avoided a catastrophic impact with the water.
So even if they'd immediately shoved the cyclic to max power and yanked the stick back/nose up to try and flare their decent, you don't just stop instantly, you've still got to reduce your rate of decent all the way to "0" and THEN start climbing; which there simply wasn't time for regardless of their reaction speed once they were only 20ft AGL at their rate of decent.
800fpm🔽
Another way to think about the effectiveness of the FE's altitude warning (in no way am I faulting it, as it is what it is or what it was in all things considered), would be to convert the rate of descent into mph, then put yourself behind the wheel of a truck traveling at the same speed. Then, imagine if your GPS tells you your next turn is in 20 feet.
In the Navy MH-60 Seahawk community we have a number of controls to prevent this type of of overwater CFIT at night/IMC to include an overwater hard deck of 100 ft aided (unless doing an automatic approach to a coupled hover no lower than 70 ft), RADALT altitude hold use mandatory below 1000 ft over water during night/IMC, not exceeding a standard rate turn and verbalizing if you are, a standard NATOPS procedure for any night/IMC descents over water, use of and acknowledgment of LAWS DH tones and so on. Sad and preventable mishap.
Thanks
Why would they instinctively turn off the rad alt warning? That infers it goes off all the time in a descent condition that is not alarm worthy. Sad story.
I've seen the same thing in the C-130 with the Master Caution light. Crew is supposed to verbalize why it came on before turning it off, but in some circumstances it's coming on so often that we get conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to push the button and turn it off. So, occasionally when it comes on it gets turned off reflexively without really acknowledging why it came on.
@@crazypetec-130fe7 Ignored/or disable "nuisance" alarms are frequently the cause of accidents/disasters. On most airliners, GPWS terrain alarm is disabled when a plane is configured for landing so it doesn't go off.
Normalization of deviance I bet. Flipping those switches can become such an automatic action at a certain point once you’ve done it enough. It’s how brains work. It’s pattern recognition. Brain hears something, brain does something because that’s what it did the last 300 times. It’s a fatal flaw in living things but in the wilderness, it keeps you alive. Our senses are evolved to help us run and fight. Not to fly planes and helis so I totally understand why these issues are so hard to fix
@@dash0173 Understood. But what I don't get is if the rad alt warning is going off, and it creates this condition where I just turn it off every time, doesn't that mean it shouldn't be going off under certain conditions anyway? And if it's a real problem it'll actually be a legit warning?
@@BobSmith-mu5kg Yes and no. I believe the system should go off anytime certain parameters are met and in this case, parameters were met. The issue with the alt warning creating an environment where you simply just turn it off can be circumvented by simply being aware of your surroundings to the utmost degree and obviously thats not possible all the time but thats where the human factor comes in. What these guys experienced WAS a real problem, a massive one actually. The alert system, in this specific situation, was not equipped to alert the pilots to the changing altitude given how close they were to the water and given the fact that they "acknowledged" the warning. From the perspective of what the on-board computer understands, them acknowledging the alert and then continuing the descent effectively tells the computer it's an intended descent(not that there's a system to prevent an unintended descent anyways, at least not to my knowledge.) but effectively, even having a system to prevent this kind of thing, it would basically have to be able to interpret the pilots intentions and thats not possible without being a cyborg
I live up there and stayed after I got out of the army, know a couple guys in the squadron and remember when this happened. I think the biggest take away from the report is the highlighting of just how bad the state of the emergency readiness response was. I get that everything is underfunded but the base as a whole was simply not ready for for this sort of accident, especially given how busy it is and next to a river is appalling
I left the RCAF 10 years ago (damn...). I hated working servicing during night training, because brains don't work nearly as well.
What they failed to mention is how they conduct NVG failure. The FE actually comes forward into the cockpit and disconnects or shuts off the goggles. The emergency is to pass control to the pilot with functioning goggles. The SP then goes through his immediate actions whilst the IP should level the aircraft. The IP was in a turn when the SP completed the emergency and regains control. There is no step to allow the SP to regain spatial control and situational awareness while their eyes readjusts from going blind. This emergency is not well thought out, when and how to conduct. It’s overlooked as simply passing control, turn the battery on and regain control. Goggles usually don’t just turn off by the switch, it would be a depletion of the battery and would require a swap out. You wouldn’t be doing this in a situation close to the ground. This is an error of the RCAF training system, they haven’t adapted the curriculum to accept real world situations that require critical thinking vice spitting out emergency responses on the checklist. Shame.
I remember when I was up CFB Greenwood for air cadets, a staff cadet who was in charge of range safety almost accidentally hit a CH-149 Cormorant with a model rocket.
He was just kinda along on the trip where we were launching model rockets we made, and he had his own which he almost hit the helicopter with.
I’m pretty sure the dude in charge of running the entire air cadet operation in CFB Greenwood was with us too, or at least he was like the 2nd in command for that.
Just a more light hearted story to lift up the mood.
The Canadian Forces don’t segregate into Army, Navy, Air Force pilots. They are all Air Force that work in the respective branches. Aircrew training is homogeneous and standardized no matter what branch the flying is occurring with.
Great video and great analysis. You do a good job of providing the facts, injecting your opinions, but avoiding judgement.
One minor comment is a human can survive a 60g impact, though it does require some carefully constructed restraints. In Formula 1, Romaine Grosjean's crash was 67g which he walked away from, a couple of NASCAR crashes were around 90g and the drivers... limped away, and Kenny Brack (barely) survived a 214g crash. I believe the keys are the head and neck restraint, and holding the body in place well enough to avoid impacts against hard objects during the crash. Unfortunately HANS devices are a bit restrictive, so I don't see air crews adopting those. Further, given the crew survived and not the pilots, I suspect part of the pilot's injuries were due to the airframe flexing leading to the pilots impacting the instrument panel, and making the airframe strong enough to sustain such a hit would be too heavy to fly. I wonder if there would be any value in a "roll cage" or similar protection feature around the pilots to protect them in a crash, but crashes are rare enough these days I think the primary safety feature is not crashing.
Thanks for the report! All very interesting. I remember the crash and thought it was just a regular exercise. And not actually a course.
Been to CFB Petawawa several times when I was in the army. And, as a former air force guy too, I fully understand how flying can be dangerous. We lost two pilots over a five year period in our CF-18 squadron.
CFB Petawa, though, is a bit unique. It's remote. So, no big city illumination. And it offers both land & water complexity. Which is why the military likes to train there, army and air force.
Normally the individual complexity of land and water would be 1+1=2. Combine both together at the same time and it's like 1+1=5. Add nighttime with no moon and it's like 1+1=10.
That stretch of river at that time of night can be like glass.
Question I have. What was the MFD's set on? That is why I say they should keep analog gauges in the aircraft.
Night vision goggles are “light amplifiers”. They will not work in a scenario with zero light and low light scenarios where there is little light to amplify they will struggle.
Tragic. Here at LA we lost a twin at Catalina during a night take off with no runway lights similar to this accident
Juan Browne aka Blancolirio on youtube covered that also. He essentially covers every aviation accident in North America and generally most internationally
The instructor quizing the pilot at a few hundred feet above ground at night is insane. Sterile cockpit rule exists for a reason.
Limited time pilot here, never been in military training. But in the situation described, it seems to me the pilot flying should have primary responsibility for controlling the aircraft, the monitoring pilot should have responsibility for continuously sweeping the gauges. I believe flying in those conditions is a team sport. As far as I am concerned it was the fault of the IP. IMO, the IP should have been in a third seat. You CANNOT evaluate a student AND execute pilot monitoring responsibilities, especially in critical maneuvers.
Even in lighted conditions, judging height above water with eyes is challenging. It's gotta be even more challenging at night with NVG. Thus, procedures near water should be on instruments. Of course, the IP should have been on top of all this. Very sad loss...
Thanks Man , hard for you I know
I wish we had this level of analysis invesigating medical error. They'd be less of it.
I've experienced spatial disorientation in DCS multiple times, and it's really disconcerting. Everything happens so fast, you second guess yourself and often compound mistakes. I hope the army is helping the families out.
Wow! Taking over control mid-manoeuvre is an extreme challenge. There are two pilots for a reason! Handover of any machine, takes a second or two to fully regain situational awareness and dial in the power setting, direction and attitude, even in level flight and to resume competent control. Had it been a troop transport mission, it would have been a bloodbath. Yet nothing was said about this being an inappropriate pilot swap during a risky phase of the mission for no discernible benefit!
I'm Canadian and have heard nothing about this report in the news, on any major media channel (public or private).
Meanwhile they take up the top 15 minutes of a 60 minute broadcast yapping about a goddamn Taylor Swift concert. Clearly a news priority. 🙄
Anyways, I recently saw another video of an accident report where disorientation in the air was a major factor. (Was it a civilian plane ? Was it one of your videos?). Common cause of crashes I suppose. 🙁
Random vr dcs pilot here😂(be nice😅)... with the new "fog" update lastweek ive had a few cases of spacial disorientation in various aircraft, including the chinook.
Night flying wasnt too hard before but now with the fog blocking all light its gotten much more challenging. One example, after looking for my wingman, i turned back forwards and instantly my brain was telling me we were banking hard, yet i knew i was in level flight even verifying with instruments by brain just couldnt "see straight"..ended up putting my head down into the cockpit to orient myself with the level of the cockpit sides and focused on the instruments. It was a good 45 seconds or so before i shook it off😅.
Its pretty rare for me to have this happen anymore, especially lasting more than a few seconds. This last update has made it all to real again as if just starting out in vr, its probably about as real as it will ever get for me, so i greatly enjoy the sensation when i get it.
It may be just a game, but between your story telling and dcs it sure helps put me into the shoes of a real pilot, for both the good and the bad.
I’d be curious to know if they were wearing HUD on the NVGs. Also: you are correct, the cockpit is a terrible classroom.
This one hits so close to home...my home town (Ottawa), and my colleagues knew some of the victims and were involved in the recovery of the FDR data. As a flight controls engineer it's frustrating that there are flight control modes like ACAH (Attitude Command Attitude Hold) available on the F model 47 and designed specifically for flight in DVE (Degraded Visual Environments)...but that they aren't used instinctively. Unfortunately, it's hard to know how bad the visual cues are until they are just "gone". I would have like to have seen better coverage in the report as to what needs to change in the RCAF to help prevent this sort of accident in the future.
... advanced tactical ! .
"Quizzing in the airplane is an Army thing, and it's stupid." There's a reason it's called being "Army smart" I miss absolutely nothing about the Army except the few people of whom proved to be human beings. I appreciate the critiquing, maybe the Army will pay attention to how it can improve. It should not take the extremes that it does for change to occur. Very sad, everyone is in my thoughts.
Hi Mover, I know there is mention of the vestibular disorientation trainer, but should (could?) the majority of these check rides have been simulated?
I was talking to a Sea King pilot on a tiger cruise about a decade ago discussing destroyer landings. Naturally I assumed they did this many times in a sim before trying it in real life. Apparently the RCAF had no Sea King sim so the first time they got to practice landing on a rolling flight deck in rough seas was when they landed on a rolling flight deck in rough seas!
They do have sims for the Chinook though, at least since 2015. I don't know what they did prior to that.
I have had instructors quiz during civil training. The purpose is to present distractions to the student or rather give the student practice on prioritizing tasks. This obviously has its time and place.
3:50 - " I'm trying to fly the aircraft in very trying cicumstances sir, so with all due respect, STFU !! ".
Mover could they make a digital night vison google if theres a defect. !
For everyones SA, rotary wing in the Canadian Forces is a airforce function
Yup.
Actually, miitary helicopter pilots in Canada are Royal Canadian Air Force. But the squadron in Petawawa routinely operates with the Army.
Yes. RCAF is Air Force. But it’s still an Army thing to do.
I understand your point. I was just saying that their culture and traditions are air force. But, that squadron may have an army mindset through being stationed on an army base and operating with the army. Great video and analysis. @CWLemoine
Flying at night, low level, wearing nods is dangerous enough.
Factor in human factors, weather and a checkride adds more lays of stress.
Like any crash/mishap this one will have lessons learned, we can only hope young and old aviators will learn from.
I realise that your point about “Army Aircrew” quizzing during flight was an aside to the main topic, however, the title of the video is an RCAF CH147 Mishap, doesn’t RCAF refer to Royal Canadian Air Force?, if so then were the crew Army, Air Force or a mixed service crew?, or was the “Quizzing” part of the evaluation process?.
It was RCAF. My point was that it's an Army thing to do because I've met US Army pilots that do it. Really, it might just be a rotary wing thing.
@@CWLemoineThanks for clarifying that, I’m an RAF Veteran and spent nearly 14 years on rotary wing aircraft, over 10 years on the CH47 as a aircraft technician, the last 4 years being as a team chief and airborne testing as part of my duties, but I also spent a lot of time as a passenger going to many different locations for exercises and deployments to combat zones, and most of that time I was on headset or flying helmet and can honestly say that I never heard the pilots/crew quizzing each other, but there again during testing I was to busy doing diagnostic tests and as a passenger just listening to the general chatter and crew interactions so I might just have never heard them quizzing each other, but thank you so much for clarifying my enquiry’s/questions, and as always thanks for an excellent review of this accident and all your other videos. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱
There is no mix. The AF fly for all 3 branches
@ So what you’re saying is that the RCAF are the only pilots within the Canadian 🇨🇦 military, don’t the Navy operate their own aircraft?, or the Army have their own Aviation Corp?, and don’t have exchange pilots and crew members, I would have thought that they did, in with case it could have been a mixed crew made up of members of the Canadian military or from different allied countries, we did have quite a lot of exchange pilots etc when I was in the RAF, both on fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Sorry if I’m sounding a bit stupid here, I was just trying to get a clearer picture of what the crew composition was or could have been. Thanks very much for taking the time to reply, very much appreciated and welcome. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴🇨🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱
Damn man I was 5 miles away at the time. They searched the river forever 😢
Agreed. Quizzing the student while flying, especially at low level is not a good idea.
It doesn't really accomplish anything.
Also, 18 months? Really? That training schedule is ridiculous
Just curious...why the head gear?
Why would you pass the controls after an NVG failure during a descending turn to a student pilot? And not monitor the descent very carefully?
Boredom.
This has killed many people. Not just pilots. The term is FAFO.
I think it's a helicopter thing more than an army thing to turn the cockpit into a knowledge check. Every flight if Navy helicopter training had some sort of simulated EP or systems question on our way out to the field for pattern work. Basic instrument and actual instrument flights always worked some EP in IMC and how to correctly trouble shoot it. The intensity and frequency of the simulated EPs increased as we progressed in the syllabus getting closer to check rides.
The in situ quizzing is the worst classroom even outside of aircraft usage.
I've had fellow instructors in land leadership courses who would start quizzing candidates in the middle of simulated firefights or other situations which ruins the training value of the simulation and severely reduces the accuracy of assessments.
A classroom is the best classroom, if you're unsure of a candidates subject knowledge in a scenario then you failed as an instructor.
they don't gall it the Great Green Death Banana for nothing! (during my time in UKAF, members of the same family were not allowed on the same Chinook... due to an incident that actually just about wiped out an entire family.. if I recall cotrectly why that restriction was put in place).
I never enjoyed rides in it... luckily Merlins were more my steed (wasn't in the Army!)... and Pumas. They are loud and uncomfortable even for military heavy lift 😂. Felt like you were getting slapped on the head repeatedly inside a barrel full of gravel.
I don't think it's unreliable or dangerous. It's just the pax capacity that makes headlines when one goes down.
Watch your instruments
Both the IP and Student recieved two warnings about height, which they completely ignored!
Their final warning, from the Crew Members in the back, stating "20 Feet, Above" was one that they should immediately have acted on to address their descent.
Ultimately, the responsibility lay with the IP, whose inaction endangered the aircraft and Crew Members!
A multi-million dollar aircraft and two Crew Members were lost in this entirely foreseeable and preventable CFIT.
Flying at night will take your life in a second! For the civilian pilots out there, take these lessons to heart and treat night flying as IFR! Spatial disorientation is no joke!
The inkwell effect got another one. If there is high overcast blocking the stars and moon and out over water with no ground lights or visual ground references, you cannot see the water, can't see the sky references, you are IFR in clear air and it kills a lot of pilots because they do not realize what is happening. I have always been amazed that we do not loose more Navy pilots like this.
I am betting that is way we lost that F-15E in the Gulf War.
Check out crash of R44 in Wilbur WA. We lost a great AME .
I don't know if this is related or not but I was reading a gun forum recently and someone posted a question about chamber pressure of a shotgun and all the responses were just ridiculing and talking down to the guy for asking such a question the message from the respondents was that only a total dweeb would care about the chamber pressure of a shotgun.
Could the helicopter power level vs bank angle be similar ?
collective power and bank/pitch angle are factors in rotary-wing aircraft rate of turn . 🤔
Did he say “60” g impact?
Sixty g’s?
Six - Zero.
The questioning during flight would be the constant realistic distractions. You as the individual flying have to have at the center of your attention to fly the aircrafts mission which doesn't include crashing.
Unlike the US army flying rotary wing the RCAF helo pilots are Air Force pilots. As a 777 check pilot I agree there is a time and a place for knowledge questions and where they did it causes an unwanted threat.
3:50 - " I'm trying to fly the aircraft in very trying cicumstances sir, so with all due respect, STFU !! ".
How do you walk away from the same crash that 2 people died in?
Does flying with night vision goggles exacerbate this? Would something like the f-35 type helmet help?
F-35 helmet costs $400,000 us$$ 🤕
Agreed. All stump the chump does is insert confusion and incorrect data into a pipeline while the trainee is trying to solidify all the steps and processes they should do. It should never be done during a real world event unless the immediate goal is the removal of the trainee from the task.
So someone had the bright idea to declare a failed NVG simulation while in a turn.... fine. Why the hell would they return controls while still in the turn to the guy who was previously distracted.... get out of the turn first.
I'm going to take a stab at the guy messing with his NVG's is not paying attention to the altitude or lack there-of, and didn't notice it when he re-assumed control.
Flicking off the elevation warning ... to me, indicates they were in the "Yeah, I know" level of dismissiveness due to the many times they were doing landings and the low level operations.
This isn't a spatial awareness issue... this is poor training/SOP's/guidelines. Not handing returning controls over to the pilot who had the "malfunction" in a low level maneuver or not dismissing the low level alarm and this wouldn't have happened.
Safety policies are written in blood.
Surely a lot of the “emergencies” can be performed in a simulator ? Air NZ learned that the hard way.
‘Playing stump the dummy’. 🤭
I finally understood "spacial disorientation" to be thinking you know where you are, but you are wrong The problem is really nasty because you know where you are so why change your behavior?
Crew chief lacked assertiveness
In Canada all pilots are in the Air Force. There are no Army Aviators in the Canadian Armed Forces. We are not the 51 state yet my friend.
Yeah. I meant it’s an Army thing. Not that they’re in the army.
@ thanks for making the video. Unfortunately our airforce is not very experienced and the pilots are very low time. Lucky to get 1-200 hours per year with very long gaps between flights at times. Even with 4000hr behind me when I went flying a bomber 100hr a year I felt my skills decline.
the quizzing in the airplane did not help the student's confidence.
Unbelievable lack of leadership in the Canadian forces is responsible at least partly for this. Our military is being treated like crap
Doesnt appear to me that the backenders were engaged enough on the flight. There were plenty of times in that sequence that an active backender should have been questioning the pilots and making callouts. 2000 fpm? Wow.
I will not spend too many words on this, simply to be able to keep it respectful:
I have specific opinions on the IP in this case.
Before taxi checks are a result of not starting with a ground crew. It's really not a big deal. Air force fly differently, that's okay, army has a different set of consids to contend with. Thinking it's dumb when you don't have full context is pretty short sighted.
Not at all. I said the concept of quizzing in the aircraft is dumb. I stand by that as a professional pilot who has flown for over 23 years. The cockpit is the worst classroom. Quizzing in the aircraft is dumb. No context changes that.
@@CWLemoine Ahh I didnt realise you were talking specifically about quizzes I thought you meant the checks. I thought it was odd that I disagreed with you for the first time. My mistake.
Honestly the whole thing sounds like a mess, Massive time gaps in tying to close training. In a banking turn, not enough thrust, dinking around with NVGs in low light, in a full decent. It all screams lack of awareness for how to produce functional pilots. They should have been required to run this mission in a simulator first to perfection across all light types, then roll though it in the air right afterwards.
3:50 mover this is a air force bird, there is no canadian army aviation
I didn’t say there was.
I don’t like helicopters in general. I have flown as self-loading cargo in five different types. Only one, the CH-47, made me want to kiss the tarmac after we landed.
My prayers go out to their families and loved ones and also to the ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice that night🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
RWY 5 KCLT Approach crosses very large lake. Dark night even with rwy in full view it really messes with your depth perception. I always hated that approach. Thankfully it wasn't used very often.
Just a comment point of view:
Our inability to provide consistent quality training to our pilots is giving credence to the unmanned aircraft knuckleheads.
We’re screwing ourselves in a very bad way. Pilots need to fly in a more consistent and focused environment with minimized interference.
This was a sad example of inconsistency with a fatal outcome.
Yah it’s tough. Inconsistency is part of being a human. It’s part of being a living organism actually. Even robots aren’t perfect. There are simply too many variable to control them all and without the ability to control them all, it’s impossible to be perfect. There will always be that one person that deviates from the norm and all it takes is a single event to change everything
This was NOT army.
RCAF