RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

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MikeJames
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RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

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Navy crew member rescued from Philippine Sea

OCTOBER 14, 2021

Three Australian Navy crew members have escaped with minor injuries after their helicopter ditched in the Philippine Sea.

The MH-60R Seahawk fleet has been temporarily grounded and a Department of Defence investigation underway to determine the cause of the incident.

The crash comes just days after it was confirmed Australia would spend $1.3bn in a deal to buy more US-made Seahawk choppers to replace the European-made MRH 90 Taipan helicopters following safety concerns.

Earlier this year, the Royal Navy grounded all of the 47 Taipan helicopters due to safety and maintenance issues.

The Seahawk aircraft was on a routine flight on Wednesday night from HMAS Brisbane, alongside HMAS Warramunga, for a regional presence deployment. But the crew was forced to make an emergency landing in the water.

The Department of Defence confirmed HMAS Brisbane dispatched sea boats, with the crew rescued within 20 minutes. The three personnel then received treatment for their minor injuries once aboard the navy ship.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton said an investigation would help determine “what went wrong.”

“We want to learn the lessons,” he told 2GB radio.

“Their families have been notified, but I guess it just underscores the difficult work and the dangerous work that the men and women of our Australian Defence Force undertake.”

Commander of the Australian Fleet, Rear Admiral Mark Hammond, praised the crews from both ships for their swift response.

“Their immediate actions ensured the survival of the aircrew, validating the significant training undertaken in the event an emergency of this nature occurs,” he said.

Both ships will continue to search the area for debris, which the Department of Defence said would help determine the cause of the incident.
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Re: RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

Post by rritchie71 »

Wow, in all my years I do not recall the RAN ever loosing a Seahawk before (S-70B back in my day, which first flew in 1989) and they got used a lot and never had availability problems like the MRH-90.

As long as the crew are ok, that is what counts.

Robert
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Re: RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

Post by MikeJames »

The RAN only just avoided a Sea Hawk loss off Jervis Bay one dark and stormy night.

The S-70 was using the RAST gear to haul itself down to the flight deck in rough weather when a rogue wave lifted the flight deck, the helo climbed abruptly to avoid the rising deck, then the deck dropped down hard, stretching the cable, the RAST cable couldn't take the strain and snapped, wrapping itself around the helo, slicing into the fuselage and rotors.

The helo dropped like a stone more than 20 feet onto the flight deck and almost bounced over the side, getting one wheel tangled in the flight deck netting stopped it going swimming.

The ship immediately headed into JP and they got the bird off and took it back to Albatross where it was painstakingly repaired.

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Re: RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

Post by RussF172 »

The incident Mike is referring to was ADELAIDE's S-70. We were doing night deck landing practice for the crews when the aircraft using the RAST failed to disengage from the aircraft pulling the cable up from the winch below decks. It finally snapped wrapping itself around the tail boom and slicing off the tips of several of the main rotors. Luckily it missed the tail rotor, only glancing off it and scratching up the blades. The aircraft launched to starboard and flew up the starboard side of the ship.

On the bridge, we knew something was wrong from all the cuffufle going down on the flight deck and FLYCO. As the aircraft flew up the side you could hear a very different sound to what we were used to on the bridge. I was on the bridgewing with the Skipper and we both said almost at the same time "that doesn't sound right"! I told the lookouts and my signalmen on watch to keep the aircraft in sight at all times and let me know if there was noise or sightings of flames etc.

Apparently the aircraft was shuddering quite severely and the pilot called a PAN. He was given clearance to come straight round and make a straight in approach. The aircraft was only in the air for maybe 2 minutes before he landed safely on the flight deck slightly to one side of the deck, not in the centre as he was having trouble controlling the aircrafts decent. There was no damage from the landing. They shut down immediately and I went down with the CO to have a look at the aircraft. You couldn't see a lot in the dark but reports started shooting off the ship to NAS NOWRA, Fleet Commander etc. We sailed straight to JB and anchored overnight just off CRESWELL.

At first light you could see the damage more closely. The skin on the tail boom had been lacerated like it had been clawed by an animal with the thick stainless steel RAST cable wrapped around it and the horizontal stabiliser. The main rotor had three of the rotors damaged with the tips missing and one of them up to nearly a meter missing off the blade. It was a real mess and must have been a great bit of flying to get her back on deck in one piece.

A team came out by boat early in the morning at first light to inspect the damage and work out a plan to get her off. After several hours, they got permission from the Maritime Commander to fly the aircraft off as there was no other way to get it off apart from dismantle it and air lift it or crane it off. They removed the RAST cable and the HF wire aerial that had been destroyed, trimmed off the tips of the blades so that there wasn't loose fibres or metal hanging out and used some sort of bog to seal the open tips. So later that day, they started her up and with the senior pilot at the controls flew her off under escort of a Squirrel helo and another SEAHAWK on a direct very slow flight to NAS NOWRA. They only had the two pilots on board, with no aircrewman and had only just enough fuel plus reserve to make it back on a route that took it only over bush and farmland just in case it crashed. They made it back in one piece and the aircraft was under repair for almost two years. The crew did an amazing job to save her. I think if it had been in daylight and they could have seen the damage, they may have done a controlled ditching into the sea near the ship like just happened with BRISBANE's ROMEO.

In almost 30 years of operation with the earlier S-70 SEAHAWK that I believe was the only real major incident we had with them and we never lost on, even on operations when they were even fired at with small arms fire. I didn't think at the time to even take photos of it but there must be some out there as a Navy Phot come out and took photos of the damage just in case it did't make it back to NOWRA.
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Re: RAN Seahawk Romeo crash

Post by MikeJames »

Thanks Russ, I'd forgotten you had told me the story, I'd heard it from someone else in Navy as well.

We've been very, very lucky with the Seahawks, I suppose it was bound to run out eventually, fortunately with no fatalities.

The Canadian Navy lost one of their Air Force operated helo's back on 30 April 2020, a CH-148 Cyclone from 423 Maritime Helicopter Squadron, attached to HMCS Fredericton, was doing a flypast of the ship prior to landing aboard, it turned to come up from aft of the ship when it abruptly departed controlled flight, hit the water and broke up, killing all six aboard.

The initial thought was the gearbox had seized up, explaining the aircraft immediately flipping nose down and diving into the sea. It later turned out (after they recovered the black box) that the pilot's flight control inputs had got into an argument with the autopilot safety parameters and the resultant messed up control input basically crashed the helo.

The investigative team confirmed that this anomaly only occurred under a very specific and narrow set of circumstances. The crew would have had no previous exposure or experience on how to handle this situation. R.I.P.

As I said, we have been very lucky.

Mike
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