The helicopter pilot and three family members were killed after colliding with that slackline near Telegraph Canyon. Authorities say a witness reported seeing the helicopter strike a portion of the line before falling to the bottom of the canyon.
The tightrope mentioned in the report was a recreational highline (a type of slackline used at great heights) that had been strung across Telegraph Canyon for the sport of highlining.
Highlining involves walking across a narrow, flexible piece of webbing anchored between two high points, such as mountain peaks or canyon walls. In this specific case, the line was exceptionally long—over one kilometer (roughly 0.6 miles)—and was suspended about 600 feet above the canyon floor.
I was talking LIQUID Argon - if you cool something (even Lithium) enough, it will not ignite. Now getting enough liquid Argon to cool a flaming battery is left as an exercise for the reader…
I saw that and meant to post here, but… things got in the way.
A few items to note, assuming I’ve processed the details correctly…
The pilot was to be married later that day
His three nieces were on the helicopter with him
The claim is that the slack line was lit and had some sort of anti-collision indicators on it
It had been called out as a new obstacle in a NOTAM (NOtice To AirMen) that the pilot should have seen
I saw pictures and video of the line and at best there were some difficult to see streamers hanging off it. And the way the NOTAM was configured, the pilot would only have had a chance to see it if he clicked on the ‘obstacles’ alerts associated with a small airfield that was not part of his route. This was a recipe for disaster.
I am aware that some significant number of pilots will say that the current NOTAM system is broken in terms of the way it conveys information. From my flying days, I can say that I would print the NOTAMs for my home field (KBFI) and would get this giant list of blended trivialities with a few important items blended in. No prioritization based on risk, and no way to identify what’s new vs the junk that was always there and no factor.
I’d love to hear from the usual pilot crew here what they think. This video below shows how the NOTAM was only associated with and visible if you clicked on a small private field that was not part of this particular sightseeing route. Significant information design failure, IMO.
It would be an easy engineering design to put in a door for ejecting something the size of a laptop. To make it idiot proof it could use a cartridge system that opens an outer port as it leaves the plane allowing an inner port to seal under cabin pressue.
An airplane from Chino, CA was stolen and flown to Washington. Neighbours of the airport learned that the plane had been reported stolen (‘Apparently the landing was not spectacular, and it was noticed by some people.’), and hit it in a hangar so that it could be recovered. Then it was stolen again, and abandoned at Auburn. Days later, a Vans RV-12 that had just been purchased by a couple was stolen.
The article says that both aircraft were recovered, but no arrests have been made.
The first plane was stolen twice, from two different locations.
If it were the same thieves both times – still a possibility – they must really like that particular airplane!
A new 737 doesn’t really have any new features to handle fires caused by things passengers carry on board compared to older ones. No aircraft does, no matter how new.
It doesn’t seem to me that a laptop computer is all that big, it’s just an odd shape. You can’t submerge it in a toilet bowl, but you could submerge it in something the size and shape of a laptop bag or briefcase. If laptops, tablets, and cellphones are fire risks, make some containers that are thin and rectangular, and put a few on airplanes in a place where they can be grabbed in a hurry.
The fire container bags worked better than I thought but the person demonstrating it was wearing a face shield and fire gloves. And that’s seconds after the battery ignites.
There have been a number of phone and laptop and ipad fires. They’ve all been handled adequately that I know of. The bag kits include elbow length fireproof “oven mitts” for just that reason.
There have been a couple of very close calls where something’s battery cooked off while the item was inside a suitcase inside an overhead. Discovering it isn’t quick and getting the bag down & open and the offending item removed from among the burning underwear, bagging it, then dealing with the rest of the burning crap in the luggage isn’t simple.
Luck will run out eventually. Society seems to have decided that carrying these batteries everywhere in quantity with the statistically inevitable fires is simply now a cost of doing business.
…& was prepared to do such & probably thinking about it right beforehand.
You just know it’s going to happen during beverage service when the cart is blocking the aisle, so one FA will have to run to the back, get thru the crowd standing in line for the bathroom, grab it, go back up the aisle & hand off to the other FA who will then need to go a couple more rows up. Maybe they’ve watched a video in training but have they ever been around live fire & will they freak out? One doesn’t know whether fight or flight will kick in until one is in that situation.
I think they’re waiting out the changeover to the next generation battery that isn’t so nightmarish to deal with. In 20 years (probably less) this will be a non-event.
Statistically inevitable, sure. But millions upon millions of these devices fly every day. Let’s not forget over 6000 guns were confiscated by TSA last year. Yes, we need a solution, but I feel like this is a little like the hysteria about EV fires when in fact they are significantly less likely to burn than ICE vehicles.
IANA battery expert. Rather the opposite. But the main measure of merit for batteries is energy density. The ideal battery has the energy density of TNT or nitroglycerine. But is just really gentle about how it delivers its payload.
I’m not sure how much flammability or self-sustaining runaways are something they can engineer out while also keeping the energy density climbing ever higher.
ETA2: @Tride. Yeah. There’s a tendency in this thread to find a systemic problem in every mishap then to flail about trying to invent and justify a systemic solution.
There have been a few total losses of freight aircraft due to large numbers of concentrated batteries cooking off. They are spectacular. But your point about hysteria is well-taken. Just because laptops can catch fire doesn’t mean they do so at a rate that is more than a rounding error in the total hazard exposure of civil aviation.
It would be interesting to try to figure out the incidence rate. It’s also a little ironic/funny that the iPad has seemingly contributed so much to pilot efficiency and safety, yet…
