 Poster: A snowHead
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Pic: APA
 Yesterday (Monday), 9 people were killed in the glacier skiing area of Soelden when a helicopter dropped a metal excavator bucket containing 750kg of concrete directly on top of a gondola car from a height of 300m...
The Cabin was torn from the cable but the oscillation caused further injuries to the occupants of nearby cabins.
This report from the BBC
This from tirol.com (in German)
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Just heard it on BBC World.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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It appears to be a gondola accessing the Rettenbach glacier above Solden. Eight reported dead, according to this report from Vorarlberg Online.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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9 dead now
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I believe the Rettenbach 'Gletscherexpress' gondola is involved: photo.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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ORF was reporting earlier that it may have been caused by a load-carrying helicopter dropping a concrete block or something similar on the cable.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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This lift map (zoom button lower right, scroll to right) shows the gondola involved.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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http://www.networld.at/articles/0536/10/120743.shtml
I'll translate the first few lines.
750 kg heavy concrete block fell from helicopter onto car. Passengers were thrown from cabs.
Press conference for 16.00 o'clock in Soelden.
An accident on the aerial ropeway on Monday in the glacier skiing area of Soelden cost the life of 9 people. Several severely woundeds people were flown in the afternoon to the university clinic to Innsbruck. The accident might have been caused by the materials handling of a helicopter. The lift company operators will report on the accident, course of events and new details in a press conference in Soelden. The Press confenrence begins at 16.00 o'clock in the hotel central.
A metal excavator bucket 750 kilograms of concrete was being transported to the mountain station . According to elevator operator about 300 meters over the car, before it fell directly on the cab, which was torn from the anchorage. The victims are to have been in these and/or two further cabs, which got by oscillations out of control. Several passengers are to have been hurled in the free.
(I may of got the last sentence a bit wrong bubt I think you ge thte idea)
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Stanton's points are also in this report from Sud Tirol Online .
According to that report the helicopter belonged to a Salzburg-based operator. The pilot was unable to explain what had gone wrong.
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You know it makes sense.
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Ouch! I was on that lift in April. The Reuters report does seem to indicate it's the Rettenbach 'Gletscherexpress' (lift 32 on the map). Although Soelden has 5 different gondolas that all look very similar, and some reports are vague as to which gondola it was.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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I've sat in the co-pilot's seat of choppers for many hours while flying load lifting from a hook under the belly of the machine to build overhead lines in Oman. These choppers had a sort of dead man's thumb on the pilot's joystick (or whatever the right term is...). The pilot had to keep pressure on all the time to keep the hook closed. We dropped a small drum of overhead line conductor into soft sand once because the load was swinging too violently and the pilot let it go. Oh what a tangled web. And once we dropped a wooden pole onto solid rock - end on. Quick way to make matchsticks. I suspect he forgot the switch and released it to scratch his nose.
Seriously, without prejudice to whatever has happened in this tragic incident, helicopters and load lifting are not such a happy combination as all these rescues and construction videos might lead you to believe.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Yes, that was in 1998: a US Marines jet which cut the cable of a cablecar in Cavalese. 20 were killed.
In January 2004, a helicopter flew directly into the cable of the Grands Montets cablecar above Argentiere, near Chamonix, killing those on board the helicopter.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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How awful. My worst nightmare is to die in in a cablecar accident.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Horrible, just horrible. 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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All the victims originated from Germany. Six Children 3 Adults . There are several serverly injured & two in a critical state.
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The Heli Alpin Knaus company that operated the helicopter involved in yesterday’s accident has been involved in nine incidents that have claimed three lives, including that of company founder, Johann Knaus.
Herr Knaus, who once flew Pope John Paul II around Austria on a visit in 1988, died in November 1997 when the helicopter in which he was travelling crashed in the Grossarler Valley.
Anyone been Heliskiing with this outfit ?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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This is not necessarily a bad record. I guess it's all got to be related to the number of flying hours, the types of missions involved and where they take place. I'm no expert on this, but helicopters in mountains presumably involve risks.
Ian's points above are interesting. Maybe something as potentially hazardous as the release of a concrete block should be dual-controlled. Dunno.
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David, I guess the assumption is when you're swinging blocks of concrete under a helicopter that the pilot really doesn't want to have a discussion with anyone when things are going pearshaped 
It seems to me like a quite spectacular piece of bad luck.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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David, one of the chopper pilots (ex British army, then Oman Police) told me that with an underslung load, if it swings too far and the centre of gravity of the chopper and load combined moves outside a critical angle then the chopper simply inverts and attempts to fly upside down. The load tends to get in the way and a crash is inevitable. Hence the facility to get rid of the load without delay. I am not sure whether this 'dead man's thumb' thing is universal but I doubt if any pilot will be sympathetic to dual control.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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kuwait_ian, from what I've seen of Swiss helicopters transporting heavy loads they seem to have a similar arrangement but it appears to be reversed i.e hook normally closed but a trigger can drop it, this requires a concious decision on the part of the pilot to drop the load and I guess is safer when trying to concentrate on mountainous terrain, but it is based on seeing only one arrangement at close quaters
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| Quote: |
| During many lifting operations, pilots often move their helicopters very little. They usually lift off, hover while the load is attached, and immediately—but slowly—move over to where they will lower the load. If anything goes wrong, such as an engine warning light coming on, they are under orders to immediately drop their load so as not to risk the aircraft. For this reason, the area underneath the flight path has to be empty. If the Skycrane is lifting an air conditioning unit to the middle of the roof of a large factory, for instance, the area inside the factory under the flight path has to be empty. A piece of machinery dropped from the helicopter would likely crash straight through the roof and kill anyone underneath. Many of these operations are also conducted at such low altitude that a total engine failure would be fatal. |
More on this site http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Rotary/skycranes/HE13.htm
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You know it makes sense.
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(Can I just draw people's attention to my excellent first post in this thread. Such high standard of writing, not to mention image insertion, will unfortunately be unlikely to continue  )
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Wow, Ian. That seems highly significant, in the circumstances. I wonder how often that rule - and one now has to ask if it's an internationally-observed rule and/or observed in Austria - is breached? It must be very tempting for a heli pilot to take a short cut, thinking "It'll never happen".
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Poster: A snowHead
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I read this yesterday and it is just awful! It is such horrendous luck.... unless they were following the lift lines, imagine the chance that they drop it in the vicinity of the lift letalone accurately enough to hit a line and snap it. The pilot couldnt have done it if he tried!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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An update to this story from Reuters.
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Prosecutors in the western Austrian state of Tyrol said they were investigating suspicions of manslaughter and negligence. He said the crushed gondola had been taken away for examination.
"We are investigating the suspicion of manslaughter under particularly dangerous circumstances and of negligence," said Wilfried Siegele, spokesman for the Innsbruck state prosecutor. |
As this article points out, the outcome of the trial concerning the much larger Kitzsteinhorn disaster resulted in acquittals of all defendants. If the rules quoted by Ian above were to apply (maybe they are relaxed when shifting stuff across mountainscapes?) there would seem to be a prima facie case of negligence here.
Presumably the Austrian investigators can establish the key facts - the flight trajectory and regulations - very quickly indeed. I should think the parents of the dead children will be pressing for very rapid answers.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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i love skking but this type of accident just scares the living daylights out of me, will be watching for helicopters and other aircraft this season.
what was the pilot even doing over lift lanes in the first place. sooooo much area to fly over he or she had to pick a line over a cable car, talk about negligence.
uh it makes me sick 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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snowleopard, sometimes aircraft have to opperate close to lift lines, usually however they avoid them as they tend to be just as scared of killing themselves by coliding with the steel cables as we are of them killing us by doing the same
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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D G Orf, Yes, and occasionally the US Airforce like to fly under the lift lines, and then deny it. Memories of Cavalese? (sp)
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snowbunny, I was skiing in the alps when that occured and was watching the european TV whilst it was going on, I have to say that it was one of the worst examples of US justice in the world at the time, they smuggled the US personel concerned out of Italy and in the end they just got kicked out of the military, the Italiens wanted them to be charged with their equivalent to manslaughter, as I recall they had a certain amount of justification to demand that, the aircraft was out of its permited flying area and far lower than its permitted altitude
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When you live in an industrialized, mechanized society you always face these kinds of accidents. They're rare, though.
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