It goes beyond just missing the approach. Carriers can mandate rules of engagement for their pilots such as exceeding “x” number of degrees of bank in the pattern triggers a go-around. I’ve watched 747-8’s turn on final and intitiate a go-around long before they get close to the runway.
For sure.
It’s hard to tell with video frame rates and how they sync (or not) with the rotor speed, but just a fraction of a second before the helicopter begins to spin, the tail rotor speed changes abruptly. In some videos, a couple spins in, you can see the tail rotors depart, possibly with a big hunk of hub or gearbox attached.
Yeah. Decent bet the last gearbox and/or tail rotor shaft failed somehow, largely depowering the tail rotor. Then it really came unglued and the tail rotor pulled itself right out of the gearbox.
Better video…
Pretty substantial hunk of machinery separated and flew a good long way towards the photographer. To his or her credit, no flinching there.
The helicopter rises in response to something. Is that a pilot induced action or would the impending parts separation cause this to happen? Something like a tail shaft breaking allowing for more power to the main rotor?
I see that now, thanks to your recent Reddit video.
The tail rotor is called the ‘anti-torque rotor’. It’s not exactly like a rudder on a fixed-wing aircraft (which occurred to me after my intro flight). Yes, it controls yaw; but it’s main function is to counteract the torque of the main rotor. In American helicopters, the rotors turn from right to left (anti-clockwise) as viewed from the cockpit. This would make the airframe turn clockwise, were it not for the anti-torque rotor. The airframe of the accident helicopter does enter a clockwise rotation, indicating that the tail rotor is no longer providing counter-clockwise ‘lift’.
So, yeah; the tail rotor gearbox seems to have failed, and then failed catastrophically and departed the airframe.
FWIW, in the event of a tail rotor failure, the emergency action is to immediately lower the collective. This disengages the rotor system from the engine, and thus eliminates torque (except for friction in the system). Was the helicopter within the H-V envelope for a ‘normal’ landing? I don’t know. But I think injuries would have been avoided, or at least reduced, if autorotation was entered into immediately.
Turbine helicopters are expensive. Granted, the Bell 222 hasn’t been produced since 1991 and you might find them for half a megabuck; but even if you got it for free, you’re still buying a $2 million aircraft. One might expect a turbine helicopter to be meticulously maintained, but there’s no guarantee. And even the best-maintained aircraft can have things break.
This is a wild-ass guess on my part. If power is no longer being delivered to the tail rotor blades, then that unused power is being delivered to the main rotor. One ‘trick’ I heard about in training (and never tried) was that if you didn’t have enough power to take off, you could reduce the anti-torque effectiveness so that you have more power for lift.
At 50 feet my gut instinct would be drop it down and yank up the last 10 feet. But I never flew a helicopter. If the tail rotor fails it’s just going to get worse with time and 50 feet AGL is a good place to be if there is still control over lift.
Or maybe three feet.
But yeah, I would like to think I would enter autorotation immediately, try to cushion the landing as much as possible, and clinch my sphincter.
They were also still over the building and trees when the scenario kicked off. Easier to handle a recovery from 50 - 100 feet further ahead and over the cleared parking area.
There’s not much directional control while the fuselage is spinning. Even if the pilot gets the engine out of the equation, there’s not a lot of aerodynamic force slowing whatever fuselage spin inertia has built up.
And boy howdy would that be a physically disorienting experience while trying to be cool under fire.
If you could pull all the remaining energy out at 3 ft it would make a great crash video. Step out and walk away.
Sorry, I was thinking of a normal autorotation to touchdown. Level the skids at about three feet, and then pull collective to cushion the landing.
… While taking a sip of of your macchiato…
LSLGuy has given a well thought-out long answer. I think the short answer is “Yes, definitely”: a crash on the airport (with a decent amount of unobstructed space and emergency crews handy) is almost guaranteed to be better than the alternative.
Yah, planes have an advantage. If you lose an engine it’s possible to trim for best glide and view how much travel is left. It allows for controlled flight the entire time. If a helicopter loses a tail rotor not only does the body spin around it starts a wobble that increases with time. You can see it in the video. That increases the chances of a sideways rotor strike which is much uglier than hitting the ground flat. It’s also almost impossible to track what is going on.
Your comparison is IMO invalid.
IANA helo pilot but in a single engine ICE aircraft I’d much rather have an engine failure in a helo than a Cessna.
As a machine the helo wins every time for survivable forced landings. Once you factor in the different missions, where helos are low & slow a lot whereas fixed wing singles are often cruising at 5K ft AGL or more, the collective odds on a happy outcome move closer to even. But still significantly favor the helo.
This is even more true in a turbine single or even twin.
If you want to talk about tail rotor failures, the corresponding fixed wing malfunction is loss of rudder or vertical fin. Which also ends badly.
I agree. I have not had a tail rotor failure (CWO2 Wifey has), but if you can enter autorotation, then you can land in a parking lot.
It’s not an easy scenario to practice. I spent a great deal of time practicing an engine failure because it can be done safely in an airport pattern. I varied it from having to force it down to nursing as much distance as possible. And it paid off when I got in a bad spot and had to force it down in a driving rain with a tail wind. Granted it was at an airport but it was a product of training I could avail myself of.
Same for autorotation. Easy to practice over & over.
Tail rotor failure is real hard to practice except in a sim. Same as tail falls off, midair collision, & wing falls off in a fixed wing.
Admittedly rotorcraft tail rotor failure is more common than fixed-wing tail falls off failure.
But most pro will fly a career not having either one
Also fun, so you want to do them over and over. 
But simulated tail rotor failures? Those really can’t be practiced. (I suppose an instructor could stomp down on the right pedal until a student lowers the collective, but that doesn’t sound very safe.) CWO2 Wifey said that she dumped the collective as soon as she felt a vibration. The R22 and 300CB have low-inertia rotor systems. (i.e., they don’t have a lot of mass – although the R22 has tip weights.) With a low-inertia rotor system, you have to lower the collective right now. So I would hope I’d do that in case of a tail-rotor failure.