Not Pave Hawk. That program was a few years in the future back then. But similar idea. Not for rescue but for armed insertion / extraction and very very light but immediate close air support if the LZ proved hot.
I agree that’s the Hudson accident scenario.
For everybody else … the section labeled “In helicopters” here is a good capsule intro to “mast bumping”: Low-g condition - Wikipedia.
There are a bunch of articles saying the last transmission from the pilot was him saying he needed to land for fuel. Despite the click bait headlines it’s unclear if he was running out or if it was a routine message stating he had to fuel before his next flight. Back in the Stone Age we always had to calculate our fuel and always land with at least 20 minutes of fuel aboard.
If there was a fuel problem this could have been cause by panicking during an attempted autorotation. Those helicopters have floatation devices that should keep the aircraft upright in the water. The same company had an emergency landing some time ago and no one was hurt when it made a water landing.
Despite my avatar, 90% of my time was in OH-58s.
At least they didn’t crash:
I mentioned the hypothetical sequence to my wife (with the caveats that IANA crash investigator, and the video is grainy, etc.). She agreed that the pilot was too slow. She said she’d dump collective at the first feeling of yaw, and not wait for a complete failure. She’s actually had a tail rotor failure.
'Nother one. Boca Raton, FL:
The aircraft was making left turns before crashing. IAN multi-engine rated. Based on the flight track shown in the video (00:52), would that suggest a left engine failure?
Flying helicopters over New York City can be hazardous.
I would think it’s a control surface issue. That plane had 285 hp engines which should be plenty of power for an engine failure.
Wow.
I live near there and got a text from the government about a couple of key intersections being closed. And staying closed … And staying closed … and.
There’s a small bizjet/GA airport (Boca Raton Airport - Wikipedia) less than a mile away and the affected intersections are just off the end of the runway. The approach pic in the wiki article was taken from directly above the closer intersection (freeway on/offramp interchange actually). The intersection in the NBC cite where they actually splashed is another 1/4-ish mile farther away. I had intended to drive through that intersection this evening to go to dinner. I guess not tonight.
I figured it had to be a doozy of an accident / fire. But I never thought it’d involve airplanes. I figured it was the usual boring cars & trucks.
Switching to the article, there’s mention of the pilot radioing about a stuck rudder. We do see a brief clip from somebody’s phone of the airplane flying wings level with massive sideslip and what appears to be similar RPM on the two props/engines. Suggesting it wasn’t an engine failure.
I could just barely imagine some sort of propeller governor failure which left them with one normal engine and one running engine but developing very little thrust. With engine gauges looking mostly normal the pilot may have mistakenly thought the yaw from asymmetrical thrust was a rudder problem. And focused on that may not have noticed the ever-deteriorating performance / speed. Until they got down to Vmc and it was game over. I did notice that the apparent airspeed of the plane during the brief time we see it sideslipping looked pretty darn slow to me.
There have been similar accidents in airplanes powered by the PT6 turboprop. The engine is running, the prop is turning, but is not making any useful thrust. Lots of ways for those gauge indications to bamboozle the pilots. But Vmc wins every time.
If the governor let go wouldn’t you see it in the gauges?
According to the LiveATC comms, the rudder lock was left on.
Looks like Magiver called it.
Um… Isn’t there a checklist item for that? Always use your checklist!
Or even just a walkaround for anything that looks like
Humans are only so infallible. I once started a car to move it up on to ramps while holding IN MY FREE HAND the oil filter I just removed. Sometimes the brain refuses to brain.
Depends on how it fails. The engine would still be running so you’d have some MP & some RPM. Not the normal numbers, but not zero MP, or zero RPM.
Engine failure in a light twin is a very busy confusing experience. The standard way an engine failure presents may not agree with what you’re having today. There isn’t a great deal of time to ponder and sleuth. The pilot may or may not be proficient. etc. Lotta ways to glom onto the first idea you have, even if it’s not the right one.
Now that we seem to know the rudder lock was on, all the above is moot.
Rudder locks are an interesting case. Anything that locks the elevator or ailerons will also freeze the yoke. So assuming the pilot ran the flight controls to their stops, that’d be detected somewhere before takeoff.
Because the pedals also control nosegear steering, there are often springs in there which mean you may be able to move the pedals full, or nearly full travel even with the rudder mechanically locked; they’d just be a little stiffer than normal. Or maybe not. But the key thing is if you are going to detect a locked rudder pre-takeoff you have to a) actually run the rudder pedals full travel, and b) know what normal vs. locked feels like. Good bet there are 100 pilots who do a) for every one who has experimented with a locked rudder to learn what b) really feels like. Easy peasy if it means the pedals are locked. But more likely the signs are a lot more subtle.
The mere fact this guy started up, and taxiied out, making at least three 90 degree turns along the way onto the runway, then took off suggests his rudder pedals didn’t feel too weird and certainly weren’t completely locked up.
We’ve discussed this before in the context of bigger airplanes, but it’d be real nice if you could see all the control surfaces from the cockpit. Or have reliable position indicators. For most 310s IIRC you can easily see the ailerons, but not the horizontal or vertical tail.
Another interesting issue. Typical gust locks clamp the surface in a neutral faired position. Assuming symmetrical thrust, there’d be no reason for huge sideslip and one can, if one is feeling Yeagertastic, use differential thrust to mimic a usable rudder.
We saw the odd flight path and the brief clip of the airplane in a massive sideslip. Which suggests a rudder that’s locked / jammed well off center.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Going back to yesterday’s helo crash in NYC & a photo the news ran of the family before they got into the copter. Notice a passenger in the back seat & notice the tail rotor is spinning. I’m surprised they’re hot swapping tourists w/o shutting down; especially, with kids, who may not listen to safety instructions so well.
Good observation.
Imagine knowing you were the last passenger before the doomed flight.
Missed me by that much.
So is the main rotor. 
I don’t know much about helicopters but don’t you have to let it idle to cool things down?