AN INVESTIGATION into the deaths of two men in a helicopter crash in Co Kildare has recommended that pilots be made more aware of the danger of striking overhead cables through a general educational campaign.
A final report into the fatal crash near Kilshanchoe on April 1st, 2009, was published yesterday by the Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) of the Department of Transport.
The helicopter’s pilot Colm Clancy (34) from Co Donegal and his student Dermot Sheridan (24) from Co Clare, who was studying for his private pilot’s licence, were killed on the training flight after they hit power lines which ran across a field.
Accident investigators found the Schweizer 269C helicopter was operating “considerably below” the legal limit of 500ft when it crashed shortly after 4.30pm.
It hit the power lines while flying at a height of about 30ft, probably while carrying out a practice exercise.
Investigators said the environment in which the helicopter was flying was such that it would have been very difficult for either pilot to identify the presence of power lines at such a low level without having carried out a previous reconnaissance of the area.
The investigation team led by Leo Murray was satisfied the helicopter was engaged in a training exercise involving a procedure known as autorotation to a low level when the crash occurred. They said the crash was not survivable.
The helicopter was not reported as missing until family members became concerned the following day. It emerged that the office of the flight training school at Weston aerodrome had closed at 4.30pm on the day of the crash, and because it was believed the helicopter had flown to Cork, no one had noticed when it did not return.
The crashed helicopter was found the next morning in an area of bogland, southeast of the village of Kilshanchoe. The helicopter had no defects.
No information about the fatal flight had been entered on Weston’s flight authorisation sheet, which should have indicated the number of people on board the helicopter, the exercises planned for the intended flight and the expected departure time and the expected duration of the flight.
Weston later put in place procedures to ensure all aircraft, particularly training aircraft, were accounted for in this way.
It also insisted that pilots must enter the details of their intended flight before they are allowed to depart.
Postmortem examinations on the two men found no evidence of alcohol in blood or urine samples. The student’s urine sample tested positive for cannabis in the “recent past”.
But the report said: “There is no evidence that improper use was made of the controls or that the flight was erratic in any way. The investigation is therefore of the opinion that this single positive test result did not have a bearing on the accident.”
The Irish Aviation Authority accepted the investigators’ recommendation that it develop a suitable awareness campaign to inform general aviation pilots of the potential hazards of cable strikes.
It said it would publish information in Flying in Ireland magazine and on its website. In addition, specific wire-strike awareness training material will be produced and distributed as part of the State safety programme.
The AAIU said it was investigating a total of six cable-strike events in general aviation over the past year.
Since 1997, when the last fatal cable strike occurred, there were only two “significant” such strikes before the fatal Kildare crash in April 2009.