There is a world of difference between a perfectly capable pilot doing something wrong (eg the Kegworth crash also mentioned in this thread) and one doing his best to do the right thing, but being unable to do so because of some external factor.
Colin Bignell
On 18/02/2014 10:23, Martin Brown wrote: ...
Radar put the helicopter at around 400 feet amsl (which would have put it about 375 feet above the ground and rather less above the roof of the pub) when it suddenly dropped. I find the fact that the pilot did not make a call more significant than the fact that the Police observers did not. All it takes to speak to ATC is to push a button you have a finger over most of the time, then speak into the microphone on a boom by your mouth.
He appears already to have been cleared to the heliport, so no further permission would have been needed. However, it would be normal to make a PAN call following the loss of one engine on a twin engine aircraft.
Colin Bignell
Indeed but Ménière's Disease doesn't usually strike out of the blue, there will have been a history of deafness, dizziness or other symptoms that would have been enquired about at previous medicals.
Of course you can hypothesise all sorts of scenarios but given the daft design of the fuel system that invites mistakes, it seems much more likely to me that the invitation was accepted. Of course there may have been a faulty sensor as well giving the pilot false information but simply leaving the transfer pumps running at all times would have avoided the engine failure. A "smarter" pump could easily have been designed to pause pumping when not immersed in fuel and resume once re-immersed.
Tim
Vertigo is certainly one of the several symptoms of Ménière's Disease, but vertigo alone is not MD. An attack of vertigo can occur quite independently of MD, and the pilot might not had any symptoms in the past. It can be caused by several things. See BPPV in
Seems all the more reason he was incapacitated in some way, but 375-400 feet and engines dying not much time to do anything really...
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