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Helicopter Crash in the Everglades

Aces over 8s

Well-known member
A helicopter carrying four people tipped over during takeoff in a remote swath of the Everglades on Wednesday morning, severely injuring one man and requiring an airboat rescue, according to police and fire officials.

The Bell Jet Ranger 206B helicopter flipped two miles west of the Sawgrass Expressway, injuring the leg and stomach of Jose Hernandez, 35, a worker who had been cutting and spraying invasive trees.

The pilot and two other workers were shaken but not hurt as they clung to the chopper in alligator- and snake-infested waters. Hernandez was rushed by airboat to solid ground and airlifted to North Broward Medical Center in serious condition, conscious and mumbling incoherently, police and fire officials said.

The accident marked the first time Broward Fire-Rescue used its new airboat, kept at the recently opened Alligator Alley station by Mile Marker 35, according to spokesman Capt. Dave Erdman.

"This is a prime example of why we wanted this out there," Erdman said. "It's an airboat ambulance."

Wednesday it was unclear why the chopper tipped. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to visit the crash site today and interview the pilot, Clifton Sullivan, 60, of Fort Pierce, who has been licensed to fly planes and helicopters since 1986.

Sullivan had been flying Hernandez and two other Applied Aquatics Technology Inc. employees to check areas that had recently been cleared of Melaleuca trees. Armed with herbicide and two-foot machetes, the trio was working for the South Florida Water Management District looking for the stubborn Melaleucas, an Australian tree introduced decades ago to suck parts of the Everglades dry.

On the scale of air disasters, this was minor mishap. Still, for the four men Wednesday was a harrowing morning.

Crews got a call of a downed helicopter at 7:51 a.m. As a helicopter took off to search from above, ground crews sped to the scene from the new fire station with the airboat in tow, racing 12 miles to a boat launch. About 8:38 a.m., the Broward Sheriff's Office helicopter saw the blue chopper lying on its side with a man standing on top of a pontoon frantically waving his hands, Erdman said.

With firefighter Mitch Stewart at the controls, the Sheriff's Office airboat sped five miles to the scene, following a path charted by his colleagues in the sky.

Before Fire Rescue got the airboat in March, medics would climb into helicopters with a bag of supplies and jump from a hovering aircraft into the water. The new airboat let rescuers bring medical equipment, like a backboard, to the scene and stabilize Hernandez. Federal privacy laws barred rescuers from describing his injuries.

The airboat sped two miles away to a levy, where a medical helicopter waited.

Airboats also ferried the other three crash victims to land. A shaken Sullivan was helped to an ambulance and ducked from the media crush. Records show he has had three other helicopter mishaps, including a 2002 crash in which he seriously injured his back.

The two uninjured Applied Aquatics employees, Mitchell Blankenship, 41 of Copeland, and Benito Rosale, 18, of Mexico, declined to speak to reporters.

Rosale, still wearing swamp waders, seemed especially upset by the injuries to his co-worker as unrelenting television cameras chased him.
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Just one question, why are they running woodin props on a new boat? Thats one corner thats not worth cutting in my opinion. Especialy since they consider it a water ambulance.




Kevin
 
The boats in the pic are not the rescue boat. It is a big red diamondback with a 496 big block and a counter-rotator. I see it everytime I go out to the boat ramp I use.

Larry
 
I like who ever wrote this story at least they mentioned how the media hounded injured people right after an accident. I was in a bad boat wreck when I was a kid and reporters hounded me for day’s. You watch, next I bet some lawyers or reporters will have to buy airboats so they can get to the wreck scene quicker.
 
I agree with WaterThunder. I work for a local Fire Rescue Department, and several times I have taken people to local hospitals for various injuries that somehow made the news. Wouldn't ya know even b4 we could get them out of the back of the unit cameras were rolling footage in the bay of the emergency room entrance. The press is rude & crude when it comes to gettin in your business.
 
The 206 Jet Ranger is a well proven & great workhorse all around the world. But like all other Rotorwings it will not allow very much abuse.

They require a lot of timely maintenance which not everyone that operates helicopters are willing todo. This is sometimes a problem with government work & the lowest bidder scheme that can get some into things that they shouldn't have been.

But if the report is correct abt being rolled in the takeoff configuration a first thought was that one of the pontoons may have taken on water or settled in the mud creating a suction during the liftoff.

Also it may have been out of it's center of gravity limits sense the article mentioned spraying & possibly a tank.
Will not question the Allison engine at 450hp which can go for thousands of hours without a whimper. The very engine I would have on an Airboat if I could afford it. If my memory serves me it weighs less than 200lbs but the least expensive one I've found was $21k.

They were very lucky sense it rolled at or near zero airspeed :)

Thanx, Gben
 
Don't forget the pilot.
Records show he has had three other helicopter mishaps, including a 2002 crash in which he seriously injured his back.
Could be just pilot error.
 
Big Boom - You might be on to something there.

I grew up hunting with a man that flew Hellcats off carriers in the Pacific, P-47s and then spotter planes in Korea, was in the Reserves and went to Vietnam in the beginning to fly and train spotters pilots. Then was flying for the government counting ducks Had something like 20,000 hours in the air. Never crashed and wrecked a plane that wasn't due to holes in the bird until his last two years. His last two years flying, he clipped a tail with his tail at the airport and then about a year later landed with the float plane with the wheels down. Nosed in shallow water. They got the plane back in service fairly quickly, he flew it home, got checked out and retired. Didn't fly again. Said when you let your attention slip, you are dead, didn't want to try a third time.

I wonder if that airboat ambulance was meeting the 90 decibels at 50 feet on the way to the crash site. ;)
 
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