TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Misshap at St Barts airport

LINK
Thank God nobody was hurt.

Not much more here but may be updated as time goes on:
https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/344872

Very fortunate the helo was unoccupied and there was no fire. Not much safety margin at SBH...

Dave.

That was an expensive landing - a Twin Otter is northward of $4 million, and that Eurocopter is over $2 million. Luckily nobody was hurt, and maybe the damage to the aircraft will buff out.

I heard he had no brakes. My question: why couldn't the pilot drive around the chopper??

Google St. Bart's plane crash and there is some video in a X (twitter) post of the crash happening. What the heck was the pilot doing?

"why couldn't the pilot drive around the chopper?"
Reported that there was a brake failure and looking at the vid posted on Twitter the DHC-6 was going pretty fast at the collision point. Normally they would be at taxiing speed (i.e. controlled and able to stop or steer easily) well before that point. Suggests that the a/c was not in control therefore possibly due to a total brake failure or, more likely, right side brake failure (which would lead to a leftwards turn when the brakes were used). The a/c was so out of control it couldn't be kept on the paved runway let alone avoid obstacles! If this landing had been at, say Juliana and the pilot had detected a one-sided brake problem at touch down they could have either just let the a/c roll out using the rudder for directional control (runway is long enough and wide enough to do that) or taken off again (touch and go landing) and made another approach in which they planned a no brakes landing. Runway is too narrow & short at SBH for the former and landing on 28 (as in this case) the hill to the east west precludes the latter option (touch and go and go arounds prohibited on 28 at SBH).

"What the heck was the pilot doing?"
My guess is: the absolute best they could in a crisis. And there would have been two of them.

Again the safety margin for landings at SBH is small especially landing on 28.

Dave.

PS 28 Aug, can see both a/c on the ramp at SBH on the webcam, amazing that the left wing is so damaged on the DHC-6. Normal ops seem to have resumed.

Wow, Dave, thanks for that expert analysis! I guess of all the bad things that could happen on St. Barts', everyone involved was lucky it wasn't much worse.

I agree. A great analysis.

Arm-chair quarterbacking without knowing the facts is questionable at best.

The DHC-6 involved (F-OMYS) apparently reported a "power steering problem" on 14 Aug that led to a return to the ramp after taking the runway. No idea if connected with the 24 Aug accident but it seemed to involve the a/c not being able to steer to the right...
Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCnOuapg-BY
Dave.