Military chopper crash 28/7/23

[BrendAn]

News report about a crash last night in the Whitsundays. Possibly 4 fatalities.   11.00 pm last night. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by BrendAn

[red750]

MRH-90 ditched near Hamiltin Is. Crew missing.

[onetrack]

Gee, 4 blokes lost is bad enough - imagine the impact of a disaster if the MRH-90 had gone down fully loaded, as it had been, just previous to the disappearance? Bring on the new Blackhawks, these MRH-90's are just not up to the job.

[facthunter]

Maybe, but we don't know the cause, yet.  Nev

[kgwilson]

There is nothing wrong with the MRH-90 per se. The problem was with our politicians and military experts who made the purchase without ensuring all of the local modifications and requirements would work and what the cost of these were and we would build them here. Australia had no track record building helicopters especially high end, very complex  large military designs requiring lots of local design features. Simple things like not ensuring the door was big enough to despatch troops effectively was a pretty basic oversight.

 

The tail rotor failure problem was something else that should never have happened. If the components had been replaced when they found an issue with the German version in 2014 & 2017 leading to a modification that all user nations were advised of in October 2018 then the problem during Operation Talisman in July 2019 in an unmodified Taipan wouldn't have happened. This led to the grounding of the entire fleet of 47.

[Student Pilot]

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

Maybe, but we don't know the cause, yet.  Nev

It is reported they were flying low level in formation at night over water, flying into water at night is catastrophic.

[onetrack]

But this is the second Taipan to crash this year - and the last one went in the water - however, fortunately it was only shallow water, and they were obviously only travelling at low speed, as there were only minor injuries.

 

It was reported this March 2023 crash was caused by engine failure. A failure to install a recommended software fix to ALL the Taipans, to prevent damaging hot starts, was reported as being behind the March engine failure problem.

 

As for night flying over water, I would expect the Taipans have enough electronic technology on board to make that task a breeze.

 

Another point of concern is that the Taipan is fitted with an emergency floatation system, in case of ditching. If the system failed to work, as it appears in this instance, then there doesn't seem to be any advantage in having the system.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-07/mrh90-taipan-helicopters-flying-after-jervis-bay-ditching/102201316

 

https://asiapacificdefencereporter.com/taipan-probably-ditched-because-army-didnt-update-software/

[red750]

Might  have hit hard. Debris the size of placemats  reported as being from the tail were recovered.

[facthunter]

Yes I think a Hard contact. Has to be a loss of control thing for whatever reason.  Nev

[extralite]

Wouldnt surprise me if chopper is blamed as it fits the narrative. However it seems to be a high risk training exercise (4 ship, low level, over water, night). Experience levels in the fleet are a bit low. The Taipan i believe is fitted with a radar altimeter that can be set to a min altitude, however this may not be used on some sorts of training missions.

 

It has been a long time since the last military aviation fatality as far as i can recall. For the RAAF even longer which is remarkable given the type of exercises they both do. KG wilson above seems to be on the money. The army wants the Blackhawk now, not the Taipan, and it gets fingered when the faults may lay elsewhere.

Edited July 31, 2023 by extralite