re: Three LSU Phi Mu's die in helicopter crash with billionaire Chris Cline

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the aircraft has a history of tail rotor blade failure with bad results

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That’s one of the speculated causes. Some have hypothesized that there was a tail rotor strike on landing.

If you lost a blade (and then inevitably the whole rotor), you could still weathervane with enough speed. But sounds like this one was low and slow after takeoff.

Curious what the emergency was...

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whole gearbox will come with it.

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If two bladed, centrifugal would throw off the opposite blade almost instantly after failure, and gearbox would seize quickly.

But you could still maintain control with airspeed, I think.

I'm not sure who or what the medical issue was.

From that pilot forum

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I have a hunch (rumour network) that there is more to this incident than meets the eye - I suspect that the ‘medevac’ element might have affected the go/no-go decision-making matrix......

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I have a hunch (rumour network) that there is more to this incident than meets the eye - I suspect that the ‘medevac’ element might have affected the go/no-go decision-making matrix......

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I initially thought that too. But they flew over from Ft Lauderdale that night. The conditions on the return flight would be identical. They’d already made the “go” decision and made it over.

So what was different on return? Weather is the usual suspect. But from what I saw it was all but severe clear that night. Fatigue? You’d already been up for a few hours by the time you got there. The fuzzies should have been gone by then.

The only thing I can think of is damage on a hard landing at Grand Cay. And they may have flown after that because of pressure. That would explain a catastrophic tail rotor failure (if that’s what it was) and a very hard impact shortly after takeoff.

Well, there’s the obvious change in load from 2 to 7 passengers too.

My dad worked offshore and flew for 20 years with a keen interest. Befriended the pilots, many of them I’ve met.

Plenty of stories that centered around the weight load difference when returning from offshore.

But for me, the biggest question is why would they ALL load up given the circumstances.

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The daughter, right? What does a 21-22 year old girl have a physical emergency for? Appendicitis?

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Epilepsy? Diabetic? Drank too much? Could be literally anything from the most serious to the most trivial. If you're Joe Millionaire and your kid gets sick you probably wait it out for a while, or if its a real crisis, you call the Coast Guard or a private medevac outfit, people trained for these situations, and there's a happy ending. If you're Joe Billionaire you call up your personal helo pilot, who may not be up to date on flying in these conditions. He rolls out of bed and gets there asap, damn the torpedoes, because it's the Bossman.

I'm not criticizing, I'd do the same thingif I had his money. But everybody is prone to lapses of judgment. And as someone else said, if you're a billionaire, there's no one to tell you no.

It’s going to end up being just really bad judgement by several people. Mostly Cline and his pilots though.

There’s no scenario that makes sense. They were not adrift on a stranded vessel in bad weather.

If the daughter was THAT sick, wouldn’t medical personnel have flown with the pilots to the island? And as I keep asking, under what plausible circumstance would ALL 7 board to depart, when they were at a mansion for that day, the 4th of July?

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This whole thing is gettin a bit Shady if a civilian pilot flew over to get them in middle of night when the Coast Guard is plenty capable of medevacs.

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So you are suggesting that maybe there was something there causing the medical emergency that you wouldn’t want the Coast Guard to see?

That’s a bit dark for me at this point. I’m going with a take charge dad who isn’t inclined to see the government as a solution to private problems.