News of the crash of an Airbus Helicopters AS350 Ecureuil, PT-YZM, in the sea off Rio in sudden inclement weather hung over the recent meeting of the Brazilian Helicopter Pilot's Association. The April meeting of the group's 2017 Safety Cycle was held last Wednesday at São Paulo's Campo de Marte, with presentations on “Excess Confidence” from the association’s director of instruction Daniel Bastos followed by “Adverse Unwarned Weather” by meteorologist Sgt. Hiremar A. J. Soares Silva.
“Technology is in our favor, [so] let's use it,” was Sgt. Hiremar's keynote, as he explained how a smartphone and nowcasting let pilots keep up with constantly changing weather. A cumulonimbus cloud can form and dissipate in 45 minutes, he noted, and the mountainous Rio-São Paulo landscape can cause rapid changes in winds, clouds and localized fog, with the tropic latitude also contributing to the region's instability. He showed the importance of weather with NTSB-based charts showing 21 percent of accidents are weather-related; 51 percent of those involve wind and another 20 percent involve low ceilings.
Next month’s installment in the series will include a presentation from Brazil’s air accident investigation agency Cenipa on that body's role in examining helicopter accidents, and a discussion on GPS in visual flight.