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Coast Guard Searching for Helicopter Tour off Kauai Coast

JIMinNC

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Low probability of accident is found in commercial airliners. Too many people die in general aviation and in these tourist flights for me to call it low probability. But probability is a relative term.

Probability is indeed a relative term. Commercial airlines certainly have very low (almost zero) accident probability, and general aviation certainly is not as good. The aircraft are not as sophisticated with the same level of redundancy, and in much of general aviation the pilots are not as experienced (plus airlines have two pilots on board and much of general aviation only one). Helicopters are also higher risk than fixed wing, but in any of these, the likelihood of dying in any aviation accident is still very small. According to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation, for the most recent year that final statistics are available (2016), there were 195 fatal general aviation accidents over almost 25 million flight hours. So, just because the risk is greater than something that has almost no risk doesn't mean it should be classified as "high" risk.

When I was researching that statistic above, I came across the following quote, which I think is relevant to this discussion:

"All life is the management of risk, not its elimination." -- Walter Wriston, former Chairman of Citibank
 

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Frankly, an instrument rating would be of little help for tour operations like these as they all must operate in Visual Flight Rules (VFR). Even if an instrument rated pilot was flying the helicopter and accidentally entered Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) - aka clouds - in the areas along the Napili coast you are operating so close to the terrain that operating under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) would be virtually impossible for even a skilled instrument rated pilot. In this type of operation, the ONLY safe course is to remain VFR at all times since the terrain is so close. I suspect that an instrument rated pilot would likely not have made much of a difference if the ultimate cause is proven to be VFR flight into IMC conditions and subsequent impact with terrain.

I will also point out that thousands of these air tour flights happen safely every year. I don't let fear of an automobile crash cause me to opt not to drive, so the low probability of a helicopter accident will not deter me from doing these tours in the future.
Well said. I was going to post the newspaper article this morning, but agree that the article was not exactly correct and having an instrument rating would not matter. The problem is, pilots fly through clouds everyday and get used to popping in one side and out the other a few seconds later. When the cloud is larger than normal, it might take a couple minutes to get to a clear area on the other side. By that time, the wind blows the aircraft off course and hitting a mountain is highly possible.

The news just reported the helicopter impacted the mountain at the top of the ridge and slid down after that. From all accounts, it appears it was moving forward very fast in transit at the time of impact. It is the same thing that has happened many times before and will happen again until changes are made.
 

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A Kauai tour helicopter that crashed and killed all seven people on board hit a ridge at an altitude of 2,900 feet then fell about 100 feet, the National Transportation Safety Board said today as investigators planned how to recover the wreckage from the remote and rugged crash site.

“A post-crash fire consumed much of the aircraft,” the NTSB said in an investigative update. “In the coming days the wreckage will be moved to a secure location where investigators will conduct a more thorough examination of the recovered evidence. Details and timing are still being worked out.”

The helicopter’s commercial pilot and six passengers were killed in Thursday’s crash. It was set to tour the Na Pali Coast, the picturesque and remote northern shoreline of Kauai that was featured in the film “Jurassic Park.”

The pilot, Paul Matero, did not have an instrument rating, which allows pilots to fly in bad weather, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Most of the pilots that fly tour helicopters in Hawaii either don’t have an instrument rating or their instrument rating isn’t current,”said Ladd Sanger, a Texas-based aviation attorney and helicopter pilot who has handled Hawaii crash cases. “When you have dynamic weather conditions, where you have clouds and winds, it might be more prudent not to fly in those conditions.”

National Weather Service meteorologists said the agency was not releasing information on Thursday’s weather conditions on Kauai. Weather service reports from Thursday said late in the afternoon high pressure far northwest of the state would cause winds across Kauai to shift out of the northwest.

A team of investigators who arrived on Kauai will be looking at weather conditions, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.


Investigator-In-Charge Brice Banning, from Alaska, flew over the crash site Monday to evaluate conditions and photograph the wreckage path, the NTSB update said.

The helicopter company, identified as Safari Helicopters, contacted the Coast Guard on Thursday evening after the tour did not return to the airport as scheduled. A search began but steep terrain, low visibility, choppy seas and rain complicated the search.

Company representatives didn’t immediately return phone and email messages Tuesday.
 

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The news just reported the helicopter impacted the mountain at the top of the ridge and slid down after that. From all accounts, it appears it was moving forward very fast in transit at the time of impact. It is the same thing that has happened many times before and will happen again until changes are made.

I don’t know what technology is in that helicopter or most helicopters... but it seems to me a simple screen with gps navigation would tell you that there is a mountain in front of you

 
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I don’t know what technology is in that helicopter or most helicopters... but it seems to me a simple screen with gps navigation would tell you that there is a mountain in front of you

When you are operating in as close proximity to mountainsides and terrain as tour helicopters do, you must use your eyes not your instruments. In that environment, the pilot must maintain visual contact with the terrain at all times. Eyes should be outside the cockpit, period. It’s likely the helicopter did have a GPS on board, but as close as those ridges are, avoiding terrain by instruments would be problematic at best.
 
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When you are operating in as close proximity to mountainsides and terrain as tour helicopters do, you must use your eyes not your instruments. In that environment, the pilot must maintain visual contact with the terrain at all times. Eyes should be outside the cockpit, period. It’s likely the helicopter did have a GPS on board, but as close as those ridges are, avoiding terrain by instruments would be problematic at best.

Obviously this pilot lost contact with the terrain. It is reasonable to conclude that he did not intentionally get himself into that situation.

Tour helicopters in Hawaii should be required to have GPS terrain avoidance like the one that I linked to. They should also be required to have a pilot and a co-pilot that are instrument rated. These continued deaths are unacceptable. Some in the aviation world might understand the risks, but these people that are enjoying their vacation don’t. It has happened way too many times. And I don’t care if it doubles the price of the tours. There is a bunch of teenagers that would be mid-life now with families if they didn’t collide with a wall in Iao Valley some years back. And there are many other stories.

note: I believe there is a huge difference between risks people are willing to take on their own versus that which is offered to the public. These are public endeavors that need to be well regulated and improved over time.
 
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I agree that the helicopters have GPS but they are not reliable. Because the aircraft is too close to the mountains the signal is blocked or delayed. In 1999 an Air Ambulance flight crashed into the mountains while descending through the clouds for landing at Hilo. He was using his GPS and thought he was clear of terrain. But during descent through the clouds, the wind pushed him closer to the mountain and he crashed into the mountain.

The GPWS or the proximity warning systems that commercial aircraft have are designed to provide signals anytime the aircraft gets close to train. But helicopters are always close to the train, so therefore the GPWS would be going off all the time and not be reliable either.

The only thing that helicopters can do when they see clouds in the mountains is remain over the ocean and fly along the beach until they return back to the airport.
 

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The only thing that helicopters can do when they see clouds in the mountains is remain over the ocean and fly along the beach until they return back to the airport.

I quick look at a map of the Island shows that remaining over the ocean could add a significant distance to return to the heliport. Which leads me to question how much range is left on the helicopters at the end of the tours. Is circling the Island to the south even a viable option if the mountains and the north are clouded over? There could be a reluctance to want take it to the beach (if you find a suitable one) due to fuel issues. I am sure local helicopter pilots know the answers here. I have no doubt the NTSB will identify these additional issues if they are relevant.
 
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Obviously this pilot lost contact with the terrain. It is reasonable to conclude that he did not intentionally get himself into that situation.

Tour helicopters in Hawaii should be required to have GPS terrain avoidance like the one that I linked to. They should also be required to have a pilot and a co-pilot that are instrument rated. These continued deaths are unacceptable. Some in the aviation world might understand the risks, but these people that are enjoying their vacation don’t. It has happened way too many times. And I don’t care if it doubles the price of the tours. There is a bunch of teenagers that would be mid-life now with families if they didn’t collide with a wall in Iao Valley some years back. And there are many other stories.

note: I believe there is a huge difference between risks people are willing to take on their own versus that which is offered to the public. These are public endeavors that need to be well regulated and improved over time.

As @tompalm said, the terrain warning features of GPS or GPWS are useless because the aircraft are operating constantly in close proximity to the ground. As he and I also pointed out above, requiring an instrument rating is pointless since these tour flights are not operating in IFR controlled airspace or on IFR flight plans. IFR flight requires clearances for specific point-to-point routes from air traffic control and strict minimum altitude and terrain clearance standards. IFR flight is what you would use for flying from point A to point B, but would be totally impractical for visual air tour flights. The flights must, at all cost, remain clear of clouds simply because they are operating so close to the terrain. There is no practical way for any pilot to fly in IFR conditions that close to terrain. Requiring two pilots is also overkill as these aircraft are 100% designed for single pilot operation. The second pilot would have nothing to do.

I'm all for any changes that could improve safety, but requiring instrument ratings and two-pilot operation are not changes that would improve safety of these operations. Establishing better training standards, company flight policies, and a culture that puts safe operation and remaining clear of clouds as the top priority over tour completion are about the only thing that can prevent accidents like this - policies and procedures that encourage good decision making and safety above all else.

The thousands of flights that are completed safely every day prove that these operations can be conducted safely the vast majority of the time. We don't know the cause of the Kauai accident, but if it proves to be flight into terrain caused by inadvertent flight into clouds, it will come back to the decisions made by the pilot in command. Maybe he thought he could get through an area without going into the clouds, but judged wrong. People are human and make mistakes. He may have inadvertently put himself in a position where flight into the clouds was unavoidable. Once that happened, no instrument rating or GPS would have likely prevented the accident that happened.


I quick look at a map of the Island shows that remaining over the ocean could add a significant distance to return to the heliport. Which leads me to question how much range is left on the helicopters at the end of the tours. Is circling the Island to the south even a viable option if the mountains and the north are clouded over? There could be a reluctance to want take it to the beach (if you find a suitable one) due to fuel issues. I am sure local helicopter pilots know the answers here. I have no doubt the NTSB will identify these additional issues if they are relevant.

According to the Airbus website, the AStar helicopters flown by Safari have a maximum endurance of 4 hours and 30 minutes and a range of 340 nautical miles with standard fuel tanks. It is likely that with a full load of passengers, the tanks cannot be topped to the max for weight reasons, but I would not expect endurance to be an issue for the typical 30 to 60 minute Hawaii air tour.
 

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5,148-foot-tall Mount Waialeale receives more than 400 inches of rain annually.

I don’t care if it is sunny in Lihue. And I don’t care if only one VFR pilot is necessary because he can follow the terrain. I ain’t going. Period.
 

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5,148-foot-tall Mount Waialeale receives more than 400 inches of rain annually.

I don’t care if it is sunny in Lihue. And I don’t care if only one VFR pilot is necessary because he can follow the terrain. I ain’t going. Period.

Absolutely. No one should ever do something they aren’t comfortable with. I am comfortable flying in just about anything, and have flown aerobatics in vintage airplanes, high performance planes, and have ridden along through some aerobatics in a four ship jet formation where the jets were flying only about 5 or 6 feet apart and my pilot was a former USAF Thunderbird. But I would never ride a motorcycle, and driving down a narrow country road in a car with oncoming traffic just a few feet to my left makes me nervous. Different strokes for different folks.
 

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Absolutely. No one should ever do something they aren’t comfortable with. I am comfortable flying in just about anything, and have flown aerobatics in vintage airplanes, high performance planes, and have ridden along through some aerobatics in a four ship jet formation where the jets were flying only about 5 or 6 feet apart and my pilot was a former USAF Thunderbird. But I would never ride a motorcycle, and driving down a narrow country road in a car with oncoming traffic just a few feet to my left makes me nervous. Different strokes for different folks.

I went up in a Bell Ranger by Hoover Dam with my son when he was six years old. It was advertised by a billboard that said $29 helicopter ride. I think we paid $40 each because we didn’t want to wait for other passengers. The ride was about 5-10 minutes down to the lake in blue sky. My son got to sit in the front. That is my story about scratching helicopters off my bucket list. My son is a teenager now. Last trip we were shooting machine guns and a 50 cal sniper rifle.
 

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I went up in a Bell Ranger by Hoover Dam with my son when he was six years old. It was advertised by a billboard that said $29 helicopter ride. I think we paid $40 each because we didn’t want to wait for other passengers. The ride was about 5-10 minutes down to the lake in blue sky. My son got to sit in the front. That is my story about scratching helicopters off my bucket list. My son is a teenager now. Last trip we were shooting machine guns and a 50 cal sniper rifle.

As I said different strokes for different folks; you won’t find a gun in my hands. The things have always given me the creeps for some reason.
 

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Here’s another option if your aircraft flies into a cloud. Add Max power and climb to 5500 feet.

Kawaikini Peak is Kauai's highest point at 5,148 feet and has been known as the wettest spot on Earth, with over 400 inches of rain per year. The most spectacular geographical landmarks on Kauai are the Napali Coast and the Waimea Canyon State Park.
 

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Here’s another option if your aircraft flies into a cloud. Add Max power and climb to 5500 feet.

Kawaikini Peak is Kauai's highest point at 5,148 feet and has been known as the wettest spot on Earth, with over 400 inches of rain per year. The most spectacular geographical landmarks on Kauai are the Napali Coast and the Waimea Canyon State Park.

One of the news reports shows where he flew into the top of a ridge. I think that ridge was 2700 feet. There was a hiker in the area that heard hovering. Lost and hovering or just heading home? Either way he needed to be a few hundred feet higher. And he should not be flying into clouds. So maybe clouds weren’t there earlier? Maybe conditions were worse elsewhere?

These tourists have the right to expect the same level of care that they get from the commercial flights that bring them to Hawaii. There have been too many of these. Something needs to change. If they stopped flying these because it is too expensive to do it right, so be it. Those people should not be dead.
 

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These tourists have the right to expect the same level of care that they get from the commercial flights that bring them to Hawaii. There have been too many of these. Something needs to change. If they stopped flying these because it is too expensive to do it right, so be it. Those people should not be dead.

I agree that air tour customers should expect the operators, pilots, FAA, etc. to put their focus on safety just as much as the commercial airlines do, but the simple fact is, these kinds of operations will probably never have the same almost spotless safety record that the major airlines do. The aircraft are smaller and less sophisticated, and more importantly, these flights operate at lower altitudes in closer proximity to the terrain. While the chances of a safe air tour are still around 99.9%, there will always be somewhat greater risk in these types of operations compared to major airlines. In a similar vein, commercial busses have a better safety record than cars, and cars are safer than motorcycles. I do think most, if not all, tourists understand that air tours are different than airlines and accept the slightly higher, but still low, risk.

One interesting thing I did read was that while the overall air tour accident rate has improved substantially over what it was in the 1980s and 1990s, in Hawaii, the number of accidents caused by VFR flight into the clouds increased after a rule was passed that required the flights in Hawaii to fly no lower than 1,500 feet above ground (I think this rule was driven by noise concerns if I recall correctly). That rule had the unintended consequence of putting the aircraft closer to the clouds and increasing the chances of inadvertent flight into the clouds. That's one reason we have to be very careful about just enacting new restrictions - sometimes they have unintended consequences.

...and based on this new thread that was just posted on this board, it seems just going to a north shore beach on Kauai during high surf season can put your life at risk:
Rogue Wave Hits Hanakapi'ai Beach

I go back to the quote from Walter Wriston that I posted above -- "All life is the management of risk, not its elimination."
 
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...and based on this new thread that was just posted on this board, it seems just going to a north shore beach on Kauai during high surf season can put your life at risk:
Rogue Wave Hits Hanakapi'ai Beach

I go back to the quote from Walter Wriston that I posted above -- "All life is the management of risk, not its elimination."
In November a cousin (and close friend and ex-employee) of my BIL died at Secret Beach. He was about 60 years old, and had just retired. The trip to Hawaii was a retirement event for him and his wife.

He was familiar with Secret Beach. Family members mentioned that he had cautioned them about conditions there in previous trips. He didn't go out far, but it was far enough for him to apparently get knocked off balance and carried out to sea by a rip current. Some surfers tried to rescue him. But he died before they could get him ashore.
 

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In November a cousin (and close friend and ex-employee) of my BIL died at Secret Beach. He was about 60 years old, and had just retired. The trip to Hawaii was a retirement event for him and his wife.

He was familiar with Secret Beach. Family members mentioned that he had cautioned them about conditions there in previous trips. He didn't go out far, but it was far enough for him to apparently get knocked off balance and carried out to sea by a rip current. Some surfers tried to rescue him. But he died before they could get him ashore.

Many are familiar with the Cessna Caravan crashing in the sea off Molokai through the vivid videos on YouTube. The pilot did a terrific job. Unfortunately, one life was lost largely as a result of the one passenger having the wrong life jacket (one for a child). She did not appear to be in the best of shape for swimming or treading water in the open sea.

I love the ocean. But I no longer venture out in rough seas. The ocean can be enjoyed by walks along the shoreline. And a nice swim in a calm lagoon. Hawaii is no place to challenge yourself in the later years.
 

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NTSB prelim report out. Pilot returning from 8th flight of day. Maybe he wanted or needed a direct route home?
 

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NTSB prelim report out. Pilot returning from 8th flight of day. Maybe he wanted or needed a direct route home?
The wind was very strong that day and the clouds were heavy with lots of rain. Just flying a normal route would have changed from the wind blowing the aircraft off course while the aircraft was inside the clouds. That is the most likely event. If he was going direct, he would have climbed higher above the highest Peak in the area. It is possible that he changed his route, but unlikely because he had a lot of flight time in that area and knew the terrain.
 

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How do you select or choice a good and safe helicopter tour of the island ?
 

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How do you select or choice a good and safe helicopter tour of the island ?

All of the major companies like Safari, Blue Hawaiian, Maverick, etc. operate under the same FAA rules and fly similar A-Star and Eco-Star equipment. All offer similar tours and packages.

Accidents can and do happen, as is the case with anything in life, but all of the ones that operate the modern jet engine-powered Airbus-built helicopters are good safe companies. Most have had incidents over the years, but they are all rare, IMHO. As this discussion has shown, though, "safety" and "risk" tolerance are very different for different people. Are these helicopter tours as inherently safe as the Boeing 767, 777, or Airbus A321 you may have arrived from the mainland on? No. They operate in a totally different environment at lower altitudes. But are they "safe", and are your chances of a safe and successful flight greater than 99.5%? IMHO, Yes.

The only tours I might avoid would be some of the smaller, marginal operators that fly the piston-engine Robinson R-44 type helicopters. While I wouldn't call those "unsafe" by my definition, I would say they are less sophisticated helicopters with less redundancy and probably statistically are less "safe." But even there, your odds of a successful safe flight are incredibly high.
 

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JIMinNC, thanks I have saved and print your post.

God country is Carolina Blue.
 

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I've taken a Blue Hawaiian tour on Kauai and was satisfied. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I flew in a similar helicopter from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

Personally, I would be more concerned about a deadly highway accident driving to a big city airport than about a crash with a reputable tour company. Sure, an accident can happen, but life is full of risks everywhere you turn, and in the end you'll die no matter what you do. I would rather enjoy the ride while I'm on it.
 

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DRI: The Point at Poipu, 3 deeded weeks, 1 of which is in The Club.
Sure, an accident can happen, but life is full of risks everywhere you turn, and in the end you'll die no matter what you do.

Shel Silverstein said it perfectly in this song performed by Bob Gibson.

 
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