Clutha Vaults

Reports am hearing are that the helicopter pilot attempted a controlled drop - a procedure pilots are trained in for emergencies.

A guy from the AIB was saying that a controlled drop means that power is shut off to the rotors (if not already lost) and the helicopter is allowed to drop like a stone so that the wind against the rotors causes them to turn in the hope that they can get fast enough to cushion the hard landing, and, at around 30 feet (yes 30 feet!) they attempt to re-engage the power to the rotor.

It's early days, but eye witness reports are that the helicopter dropped like a stone. The pilot may have been looking for a set down area in a controlled drop and may have mistaken the flat roof of the pub for hard ground in the dark.

Other witness statement have said their was no big bang, no explosion, rather there was a big "whump", which suggests the hard landing of the controlled drop worked but unfortunately the impact on the roof of the pub caused it to collapse taking the helicopter with rotor still turning into the people below. In fact, it can be clearly seen in TV news, and has been backed up, that the rotor cut off the helicopter's own tail as it collapsed into the pub.

Imagine that. Several tons of helicopter and roof coming in on you as well as a rotor blade still going round.

 

My initial thought was that he mustve been aiming to ditch in the river but didnt make it ?

 

Apparently the band took the roof off the place.

 

Apparently (am just going on reports av heard) the pilot's training would have been a controlled drop while looking for empty ground. Ditching in a river would more likely kill everybody on board. The "controlled drop" is designed to lessen the chance of fatal injury by controlling to a hard landing. Landing on a pub roof was not in the manual.

 

As a resident of norf lanarkshire let me be the first to say

 

I'm ok, incase anybody was worried

 

The pilot had nearly thirty years experience flying helicoptors . He learned his trade in the royal air force and had been flying for the police and the NHS for a number of years .

He knew every manual back to front .

 

He must have missed the 'Avoiding Boozers' manual.

 

Quelle surprise - pikey ciaran being a fandan.

 

Now now, Tina.

 

Which is what I said. The pilot, by all accounts thus far, executed his job almost perfectly. Am not going to hold mistaking waste ground or a car park or any other 'blank area' while in a sudden and controlled descent in the dark against him. Nobody should. Even this early I believe nobody will. Even those that have lost family.

 

It's actually quite embarrassing. Considering he purports to support a team that plays in this city and some of the dead are more than possibly fans of his club.

 

embarrassing yet not surprising though.

 

Let me get this straight, every tragedy that occurs gets mocked on here yet when it happens in Glasgow it's off limits?

 

Yes. Now **** off.

 

If only you had missed the 'Avoiding being a dick' manuel Keyring

 

This makes no sense, you are saying I read the manual to avoid being a dick.

 

I don't know about that pal . I could ask his half sister but thankfully she has fallen asleap after a pretty bad day .

 

I have never mocked a tragedy on here maybe that's how you operate. I possibly know some of the dead. As I said needy and toxic. Go and seek attention elsewhere you arsehole.

 

Simmer down numbnuts. The worst offenders for this kind of thing on here are the Scottish, led by the hypocrite Tina who was moaning above. I will be keeping my eyes peeled to see you admonish them in any future thread about a tradegy that happens.

Seeing as you haven't done it in the past, I don't hold out much hope.