The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department SH-3H made an emergency landing shortly after 12:40 p.m. today. The Sikorsky Sea King had two pilots and two mechanics on board when they had mechanical problems with one of the engines. They notified the Fire Department of their situation and dumped fuel on an RV park, hitting one [...]
Vertolety Rossii (Russian Helicopter) made an interesting announcement recently in Moscow. They plan to spend $1 billion on researching what they are calling a fifth-generation helicopter. What are the requirements? It must be radar invisible, have extended range (no specifics on what that means,) be equipped with an intellectual arms system, be able to combat [...]
Volcanic ash being released from a glacier in Iceland has wreaked havoc with travel plans and caused the largest closing of airspace since 9/11. This, of course, includes helicopters and put a halt to offshore oil and gas ferrying and limited the amount of HEMS operations possible. The rule was that they couldn’t fly unless [...]
One of the Sikorsky S76 helicopters operated by Ornge (yeah that is how they spell it) in Canada had a close call on Friday. Just before 7 a.m. a car slammed in to the back of a tractor-trailer prompting a medevac flight to be called. The patient died at the scene and therefore wasn’t loaded [...]
Pirates off the coast of Somalia raided an Iranian fishing boat and then left the 13 crew members to die. They were tied up and left without any food or fresh water for several days before being spotted by the Spanish warship, Navarra. The pirates had destroyed the radio equipment and rendered their cell phones [...]
In 2008, the helicopter search and rescue unit of the Royal Navy based at HMS Gannet, in Prestwick, responded to 347 calls. In 2009 they broke their own record with 447 call outs performed, making them a two year successive winner of the busiest search and rescue base in the UK. They operate three Sea [...]
