Air Methods and Airbus Helicopters will share the costs of a $100 million settlement with a surviving crewmember of a crashed 2013 Airbus Helicopters AS350 B3e. It went down after attaining an altitude of 100 feet agl approximately 30 seconds after takeoff from the Summit Medical Center Heliport in Frisco, Colorado, on July 3, 2015. The helicopter crashed into a parking lot 360 feet southwest of the ground-based helipad and was destroyed by impact and post-crash fire.
The pilot died as the result of his injuries and the two flight nurses were severely injured. Paramedic/flight nurse David Repsher sustained burns over 90 percent of his body while paramedic/flight nurse Mathew Bowe sustained impact injuries. Both men are permanently disabled and Repsher has ongoing and significant medical issues. Air Methods will contribute $45 million of the settlement with Airbus Helicopters contributing the remainder. Repsher's lawsuit had been scheduled to start March 5.
The NTSB found that the probable cause of the accident was the helicopter's “(1) preflight hydraulic check, which depleted the hydraulic pressure in the tail rotor hydraulic circuit, and (2) lack of salient alerting to the pilot that hydraulic pressure was not restored before takeoff. Such alerting might have cued the pilot to his failure to reset the yaw servo hydraulic switch to its correct position during the preflight hydraulic check, which resulted in a lack of hydraulic boost to the pedal controls, high pedal forces, and subsequent loss of control after takeoff.
"Contributing to the accident was the pilot's failure to perform a hover check after liftoff, which would have alerted him to the pedal control anomaly at an altitude that could have allowed him to safely land the helicopter. Contributing to the severity of the injuries was the helicopter's fuel system, which was not crash resistant and facilitated a fuel-fed post-crash fire.” Repsher's seat also was not properly fastened.
The settlement came just days before survivors of another Airbus Helicopters crash, this one an EC130 B4 that went down during a Grand Canyon air tour flight, suffered extensive post-crash burns.
Crash Resistance
All helicopters certified by the FAA after 1994 are required to have crash-resistant fuel systems; however, legacy helicopters whose original type certification predate the rule change—such as the AS350 and its variants including the EC130—are exempt.
In 97 fatal helicopter accidents between 2008 and 2013, post-crash fire occurred in 39 percent of Part 27 aircraft without fuel systems meeting crash-resistance requirements and contributed to 20 percent of the fatalities in those accidents, according to data from the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI). It further discovered that only 16 percent of all U.S.-registered rotorcraft were in compliance with the fuel system crash-resistance requirements, even though those requirements had been in force for 20 years at the time of the study. CAMI data identified blunt force trauma as the cause of death in 92 percent of all fatal U.S. helicopter accidents between 2008 and 2013; and the cause of death in 80 percent of the Part 27 accidents where a post-crash fire occurred.
As of late last year, there were two sources of retrofittable crash-resistant fuel systems, according to an Airbus Helicopters spokesman. Airbus Helicopters has received FAA approval and has offered a retrofit CRFS service bulletin for only the H125/AS350B 3e since 2016. “It should be noted that many or most installations are in some ways unique and require a service bulletin for the specific aircraft configuration,” he said. Standard Aero (formerly Vector Aerospace) is the only FAA-certified provider for all other AS350-series models, including the EC130 B4. The tank is designed as a replacement for AS350 models, including the AS350C, AS350D/D1, AS350B/B1/B2/BA/B3, AS350B3e (H125) and EC130B4. Offering the same capacity as the legacy fuel cell, safety features include a self-sealing breakaway valve, vent system roll-over protection, a vent system flame arrestor, and a crash-resistant recessed sump drain valve, all aimed at increasing survivability for passengers and crew. In addition, the new tank complies with FAR 27.952 fuel system crash-resistance requirements.
In an exclusively interview with AIN, Airbus Helicopters CEO Chris Emerson said, “We are helping operators” retrofit aircraft with crash-resistant fuel systems. “We are not leaving our customers alone to solve this problem. We will help them find solutions.” Crash-resistant fuel systems have been standard on all new AS350 B3e models delivered since late 2015. While Airbus Helicopters is offering customers technical assistance, Emerson stresses this is not as of yet taking the form of any structured financial offering or discounting.
The Colorado accident was similar to one the year before with an AS350 B3e EMS flight in New Mexico and another one with a Customs and Border Patrol AS350 B3in 2009 the NTSB noted. In the New Mexico accident the crew escaped with minor injuries after helicopter crashed on departure from a hospital heliport. The pilot reported he was unable to arrest a left clearing turn with right pedal that subsequently developed into an uncontrollable spin. The NTSB found the probable cause of that accident was “the pilot’s loss of yaw control during takeoff due to the absence of hydraulic boost to the tail rotor pedals for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information” and also noted “the lack of a caution indicator to alert the pilot of the lower hydraulic system configuration.”
Given the Colorado accident and previous related ones, the NTSB recommended that Airbus Helicopter change the dual hydraulic system on the AS350 “that would both ensure pedal control hydraulic assistance and mitigate the possibility of pilot error during any check of the hydraulic system.”