Lawsuit Filed: Bell 206B Helicopter (Fish and Game) Crash at Auberry, California
Nothing scares helicopter pilots more than wires. Flying into a wire is often fatal. What worries the pilot is that wires are hard to spot. The trick is to look for the towers. Once you see the towers, you can spot the wires strung between them.
But not always.
In January, a California Fish and Game helicopter flew into wires near Auberry, California. Four died in the ensuing crash. Two families have now sued Southern California Edison, alleging that the
power company should have marked its wires with orange balls to make them more visible.
The twist to the case is that the helicopter did not strike the 2” thick high tension wires that carry electricity. Rather, it flew into thinner, harder-to-see “static lines” that were strung above the high tension wires.
From one of the lawsuits:
The transmission lines directly over Willow Creek span 3,000 feet from tower to tower. . . Static lines are normally within several feet of the power transmission lines however on the 3,000 foot span the static lines were constructed and maintained so as to be significantly elevated above the power lines. . . . helicopter pilots flying in and about transmission lines would form the belief that the static lines would be maintained at the approximate same distance above the power lines . . . Because of the size of the static lines, they are nearly invisible until they are within about 285' so that at a nominal speed of 60 knots the pilot has no more than 2.8 seconds to observe the lines and avoid them whereas with colored ball warnings on the lines they are easily seen from a safe distance to allow pilots to identify the lines and to easily avoid the hazard of them.
Here is a photo of marker balls installed on a nearly invisible static line, and the high tension wires that hang below. (This is not the accident site.) Note what a difference the balls make.
As one who has spent a life time looking out from an airplane, and being startled by wires passing over my airplane, your statement that "once you spot the towers, you'll see the wires"...is simply not generally true, and not good advice.
The spotting of towers is the correct approach...but only to mark the geo points over which to safely fly. A pilot cannot see wires. Period. They become invisible because of horizon conspicuity, roads, and even all tree limbs. Similar to radio towers that align themselves with roads or highways.
Please correct your good advice to young cross county pilots and just say "consider wires to be invisible"
anon
Thanks for the comment.
I agree whole-heartedly: cross-country pilots should consider wires to be invisible. A helicopter pilot on a cross-country flight should look for the towers, pick one out, and then fly directly over it. Never fly between the towers. The helicopter pilot may be able to see the wires strung between two towers, but then again, he may not. That was the point I was trying to make.
If the cross-country pilot flies over the tower itself, then he doesn’t need to worry about hitting the wires strung from it. But the fish and game helicopter was *not* on a cross-country flight. The pilot did not have the luxury of picking the terrain over which it was going to fly. He was on a mission to survey game. He was given a designated polygon of terrain over which to fly. The towers the pilot "split" (flew between) were 3000 feet from one another. Presumably, he couldn't have completed the mission if he restricted his flight path to the airspace above either one tower or the other 3000 feet away. There was just too much real estate between the towers that he and his crew were required to cover.
No question about -- flying between towers is hazardous. Cross-country pilots should never do it. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. But the complaint alleges that the power company should have marked its lines -- not for pilots flying cross country -- but for the fire-fighters, drug enforcement pilots, mapping aircraft, survey flights, search and rescue and fish and game aircraft that have no alternative but to work between the towers.
All in all, sounds like a reasonable claim.
Mike Danko