MTO Sport wire strike in Texas

Part of the gyroplane flight instruction I give is to avoid running into wires.

Wires like these that run along a road with dark wooden poles near a tree line are particular hard to see.

A little altitude goes a long way in reducing the potential for wire strikes.

Near SMX I have a wire that runs between two ridges on one of my favorite routes that I use to teach people how hard wires are to see. The poles are easier to spot than the wires but these are also dark wooden poles and very hard to see against the dark earth and rocks.

I have not had anyone fly with me that could find the wires in time to avoid them. The wire is about three hundred feet above the ground (sometimes river) and is a logical place to be flying. I have asked the FAA for balls but so far no balls. I have talked to two fixed wing pilots who nearly hit these same wires.

I lost a good friend in a gyroplane wire strike accident and would like to not lose any more.

Please work on staying clear of wires and antennas.

Roads often have wires alongside them and across them.

Rivers often have wires across them that may be very hard to see.

The last time I checked wire strikes were the number one cause of helicopter fatalities.
 
A new gyro only registered new in April 2017.

The FAA shows the owners address as McCoy, Texas which seems to be were the wire strike took place.

The FAA ASIAS states - AIRCRAFT ON LANDING, STRUCK POWERLINE, NEAR MCCOY, TX
 
Have to admit that this is the first discussion of the dangers of wire-strikes by rotor-craft I have seen in here. I've viewed hundreds of the "famed low and slow" videos on youtube. I've read numerous accounts of the joy of flying low and slow. Maybe more precautionary posts about pre-flight investigations of choosing safe areas for these low and slow manovers would be a good thing. Now maybe I understand better why so many pilots choose to do these aerobatic flights close to airports where they trailer their gyros in, instead of flying to them.
 
eutro - plenty of gyros have hit low low wires over the years - height is good.

Have a look at my Blog



http://gyroaccidents.blogspot.co.uk/



scroll to these dates

4-10-14

17-7-14

28-2-14

12-7-13

21-7-12

plus others


"...........was destroyed when it impacted power transmission wires near...."

The witness reported that the gyroplane struck the top wire of the power transmission wires, and then lost control and impacted the ground."

the yellow gyrocopter is believed to have hit powerlines across the river Desna before crashing into the water. Two persons on board. The pilot was rescued, the body of the passenger was recovered some hours later. The TV report below shows the wires to be maybe about 10m above the ground.

the right landing gear strut contacted a guy wire attached to a utility pole alongside the highway that bordered the south side of the airport.


etc etc



Height is good.
 
And I might add frank that until just recently there were very few enclosed gyros that are truly capable of comfortable all weather cross country flight,most

open frame gyros are built for brief recreational flying not long cross country trips.

Its kind of like choosing a dirt bike or a Harley for your cross country road trip,they both are capable of getting there.
 
Have to watch for wires across rivers and valleys... Don't trust what people are telling you when they say "there are no wires until the next bend"...
 
Flying over your intended low-level playground for reconnaissance is a must!
I dodged that bullet one day, just barely.
Seek forward to 9:55 and watch the poles emerge from behind the tree on the right.
Could have gone bad.
 
OH Buggah .... that was Charles Brazil ... one of our LSRC members!:frown: ...so sorry to hear ... the gyro looks a mess ... hope you recover well!:sorry:
 
Yep them wires will get ya! Sorry to hear they struck again... It happens all to often. Been close myself glad to stay away from them.
 
Your NTSB has published a Preliminary,



On October 2, 2017, about 1515 central daylight time, an MTO Sport gyroplane, N818PB, impacted a power line and terrain near McCoy, Texas. The student rated pilot received serious injuries and the gyrocopter was substantially damaged during the accident. The gyrocopter was registered to and operated by a private individual under the provisions of 14 Code of Federal RegulationsPart 91 as a personal flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed at the time.



The initial report from the responding Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector indicated that the pilot was landing near his residence, when the left landing gear caught a power line. The gyrocopter then impacted a roadway; coming to rest on its right side.


The airplane was retained for further examination""


More info on their PDF
 
eutrophicated1;n1125462 said:
Have to admit that this is the first discussion of the dangers of wire-strikes by rotor-craft I have seen in here. I've viewed hundreds of the "famed low and slow" videos on youtube. I've read numerous accounts of the joy of flying low and slow. Maybe more precautionary posts about pre-flight investigations of choosing safe areas for these low and slow manovers would be a good thing. Now maybe I understand better why so many pilots choose to do these aerobatic flights close to airports where they trailer their gyros in, instead of flying to them.

I feel you may be reading too much into things Frank; because you are at the beginning of you gyroplane adventure.

It is my observation that many wire strikes happen in familiar territory as did this one.

The most consistent thing I get from gyroplane accident investigation is there is a chain of decisions leading up to the mishap usually beginning in flight planning before the aircraft is even started.

Break the chain and the accident may be avoided.

Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 91.119 is about minimum safe altitudes.
Minimum safe altitudes: General.
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes:
(a) Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) Over congested areas. Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.
(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

Unfortunately many gyroplane pilots appear to me to forget that a little altitude gives more landing zone options and that wires and fences are structures.

I follow roads for many reasons when I fly cross country. One reason is that I don’t have far to walk if I have an emergency landing. It is not so I can land on a road because roads tend to have wires, signs and vehicles. A road is often not a viable landing zone.

I find value in continually searching for suitable landing zones and checking to see if I have enough altitude to reach the spot and turn down wind. This sometimes causes me to fly a little higher than I would otherwise.

I try to be aware of which way the wind blows so I don’t land downwind.

If I hit wires I am likely in violation of FAR 91.119 unless as may be in this mishap I am landing or taking off.

In my opinion close proximity of wires makes for a poor landing zone choice.

If I am planning an off airport landing I always carefully walk the landing zone looking for hazards. Too many times I have found holes, ditches and fences that I could not see from even 100 feet above the ground. I have no way to know how hard the surface is from 100 feet above the ground.

I practice accurate no roll landings but that is no reason to assume I don’t need 1,000 feet unobstructed area so I can take off again. Yes I can lift off in much less (350 to 500 feet) but not every takeoff goes perfectly or the wind may shift so I like to have room for a less than perfect takeoff.

Please understand this is what I do to mitigate the risk of flying a gyroplane and what I recommend to pilots under my instruction.

I feel how someone identifies unacceptable risks and chooses to mitigate the unavoidable risk of flying is a personal choice.
 

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Sorry if I "read too much into this", Vance. Yet I believe I've gotten valuable info from the forum, because I voiced my concern. I have copy-pasted all the responses received so far into a text document. Its great having this in one spot, that I can refer to quickly. I believe I did a forum search on this topic, and found nothing. Just as I tried to search for Stan Foster's SparrowHawk build thread, and got "invalid url link" response. Vance, I still consider your ongoing posts to be among the most valuable. The more you type, the richer I become.
 
eutrophicated1;n1125645 said:
Sorry if I "read too much into this", Vance. Yet I believe I've gotten valuable info from the forum, because I voiced my concern. I have copy-pasted all the responses received so far into a text document. Its great having this in one spot, that I can refer to quickly. I believe I did a forum search on this topic, and found nothing. Just as I tried to search for Stan Foster's SparrowHawk build thread, and got "invalid url link" response. Vance, I still consider your ongoing posts to be among the most valuable. The more you type, the richer I become.

I did not intend to be derogatory Frank. I like the way you think and your approach to learning.

The point I was trying to make Frank; is that many people trailer their gyroplanes and don’t fly far because that is what they like to do rather than to be able to fly low because they know the area.


There was a recent agricultural helicopter wire strike where he had been spraying the same field for 20 years and would fly under the wire. They added a second wire in the week previous and it knocked him out of the sky and destroyed his Bell 47G. In other words to be familiar with an area is no assurance things won’t change and you can spot everything with a low pass.


In the last ten years cell towers have been popping up without warning and some are quite tall.


While planning a late afternoon flight from George Town (E36) to Reo Vista (O88) I noted that there were two towers on a direct course with guy wires that would have the sun setting behind them. They were both over 2,000 feet above the ground (AGL) near Walnut Grove. I would typically be flying 600 to 1,100 feet AGL in this area depending on what I was flying over.

We had a forum member strike a guy wire for an antenna tower and survive. We had another forum member strike a guy wire for a power pole very near his home and he did not survive.


It would be hard to express how important I feel it is to manage wires when flying low. I spend a lot of dual instruction time pointing out how hard wires are to see.
 
There have been multiple discussions about wire strikes on the forum in the past but may not be in the thread heading :noidea:
l made a post in the training section .
 
Maybe this forum would be a good place to "grow" a list the links(as in a file) various experienced pilots use to find statistics and instances of sport aviation accidents....

Thanks to Steve_UK for the first one.
 
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