Rather than discuss what we should do if we ever find ourselves in inadvertent or unintended IMC, we should focus on how to make sure we never find ourselves in that situation in the first place.
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- March 17, 2021, 8:00 AM
James Viola, who became president and CEO of HAI in January 2020, has kept a busy agenda in his first year despite events such as the pandemic that could not have been foreseen when he took the role. (Photo: Barry Ambrose)
When James Viola accepted the position of president and CEO at Helicopter Association International (HAI) in late 2019, he expected to have a long transition period as he paved the way for the association’s goals of extending its reach internationally and building on its well-established safety programs.
A year later, HAI has made strides towards those goals: initiatives are underway to strengthen the association’s presence before the International Civil Aviation Organization, establish new relationships throughout the globe, expand the membership beyond traditional rotorcraft, add new and revisit safety programs, and consolidate safety and other initiatives under a newly rebranded Vertical Aviation Safety Team (VAST).
- February 26, 2021, 12:14 PM
On February 9, the NTSB held a public meeting on the crash of a Sikorsky S-76B that killed the pilot and eight occupants. As helicopter crashes go, other than killing superstar athlete Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and family friends, this one held few surprises. In a scenario that has been played out many times before, this accident flight included scud running, inadvertent flight into IMC, spatial disorientation, loss of control, and a tragic loss of life.
The obvious question here, as the late Matt Zuccaro said many times before, why don’t they just “land the damn helicopter?” Pilots need to take advantage of the most unique and valuable characteristics of vertical flight and just “land and live” rather than continually flying into bad weather.