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Another Helicopter Crash in Volcanoes Ntl Prk

Another Helicopter Crash in Volcanoes Ntl Prk

Old Jun 16, 2003, 1:49 am
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Another Helicopter Crash in Volcanoes Ntl Prk

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ar.../br/br02p.html

Grim news
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Old Jun 16, 2003, 7:25 am
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Very sad. What a terrible thing to happen. God bless the families.

We had planned on taking a helicopter ride to the volcano when we visit Kona Village next month. Not sure how this will affect our decision.
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Old Jun 16, 2003, 5:24 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by FFMilesJunkie:
Very sad. What a terrible thing to happen. God bless the families.

We had planned on taking a helicopter ride to the volcano when we visit Kona Village next month. Not sure how this will affect our decision.
</font>

Sad indeed. But go take the helicopter ride. I just took one a few weeks ago in the exact same area. We used Blue Hawaiian. On the Big Island, they operate out of the airport in Hilo .
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Old Jun 16, 2003, 5:27 pm
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Very sad, indeed. I wonder, though, how many ordinary traffic fatalities have occured on the Big Island, involving tourists driving to Kilauea?

I don't know what the outcome would be, but it would be interesting to compare the relative risk of driving to scenic Hawaiin locations vs. flying in a helicopter to them. Of course, some locations are only accessable via helicopter, so a comparison might be difficult.

My guess is that flying in a helicopter is about as risky as riding a motorcycle or driving without a seat belt. Then again, I've got nothing to back that up.
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Old Jun 16, 2003, 6:25 pm
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Your response made me curious about the number of helicopter fatalities in Hawai'i. Now this data isn't meant to scare anyone away from taking a helicopter tour because by all means, such a tour is a once in a life time experience. The data form the NTSB pulled up 28 fatal helicopter crashes since 1962 excluding military crashes. The number of fatalities are also listed beside each crash.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp is the website to query this information. Just enter in Hawaii as the state and Helicopter as the aircraft and set your dates.

Of course there's no way of finding accurate traffic data of only tourists driving near Kilauea...

But like I've said, nothing is as incredible as the views from a helicopter, especially at Kilauea.
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Old Jun 16, 2003, 8:00 pm
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I knew the family that was killed in this crash.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...12X21525&key=1
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Old Jun 17, 2003, 7:01 pm
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http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/ar.../br/br02p.html

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">The tour helicopter that crashed Sunday killing the pilot and three passengers plummeted to the ground inside a restricted area where tour helicopters were banned because of a brush fire on the ground, according to the lead crash investigator.</font>
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Old Jun 18, 2003, 8:39 am
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by slippahs:
Your response made me curious about the number of helicopter fatalities in Hawai'i. Now this data isn't meant to scare anyone away from taking a helicopter tour because by all means, such a tour is a once in a life time experience. The data form the NTSB pulled up 28 fatal helicopter crashes since 1962 excluding military crashes. The number of fatalities are also listed beside each crash.</font>
As a side note, here are a few quotes I found in the papers. They show few crashes out of many flights: (Quotes from Honolulu Advertiser and West Hawaii Today Newspaper)

"He said there are roughly 1,800 small plane and helicopter crashes each year in the U.S., with NTSB investigators working on more than one crash investigation at a time."

"In September 2001, a Tropical Helicopters Bell 206 helicopter experienced engine problems, made an emergency landing in a pasture and burst into flames after taking off from the airport. No serious injuries were reported among the five people aboard.

A small tour plane ditched in the ocean four miles north of Hilo in August 2000. An Oklahoma woman was killed, but the eight other people aboard the plane were rescued."

"This was the first fatal tour helicopter crash in the state in three years. Seven people died in July 2000 when a Blue Hawaiian Helicopters aircraft crashed into the side of 'Iao Valley on Maui."

"Tropical Helicopters is the same firm that had a helicopter crash-land with five people aboard in a Kea'au field on the Big Island in September 2001."

Another quote is: "It's a popular area for tour helicopters Each year, more than 30,000 helicopters fly over the active volcano, Gale said."
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Old Jun 22, 2003, 10:07 am
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I LOVE EWR.

Sorry to hear this tragic news. We knew 3 people on TWA 800; so understand how you feel.

We've been to Hawaii twice.

The helicopters are a big draw.

But based on their track record over the years, we always - PASS - on this once in a lifetime excursion.

Dan
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Old Jun 22, 2003, 12:06 pm
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We did the Haleakala, Hana tour with Blue Hawaiian. It's an experience we will never forget. We have the video and will always cherish that experience. It was quite bumpy and quite scary going up 10,000 ft through clouds and light rain, but when we got through that it was magnificent. It was one of my favorite highlights from all the times I have been to the islands.
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Old Jun 23, 2003, 5:33 am
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I would also highly recommend taking a helicopter atleast once in Hawaii. We did it in Kauai, and it was our favorite part of the trip.

It is no more dangerous than your flight to the islands, so the only real issue should be that it is a little expensive....
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Old Jun 23, 2003, 12:45 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jkzahn:
It is no more dangerous than your flight to the islands, so the only real issue should be that it is a little expensive....</font>
Actually I'd wager on a statistical basis, it's a lot more dangerous. It's unlikely you'll be in a helicopter incident but on a basis of incidents per flight or flight time or distance flown, I'd wager it's statistically more dangerous than flying with a scheduled commercial carrier.
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Old Jun 23, 2003, 1:23 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by svenskaflicka:
We did the Haleakala, Hana tour with Blue Hawaiian. It's an experience we will never forget.</font>
We got rained out of our Blue Hawaiian flight from Hilo. They were in a drought until we got there - 2 full days of rain.

But at least Waikoloa was nice and sunny :-)

SteveH

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Old Jun 24, 2003, 6:46 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by 330CiC:
We got rained out of our Blue Hawaiian flight from Hilo. They were in a drought until we got there - 2 full days of rain.

But at least Waikoloa was nice and sunny :-)

SteveH

</font>

Not surprising. Our Blue Hawiian pilot (in Hilo) told us Hilo is the wetest city in the United States.
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Old Jun 24, 2003, 7:11 pm
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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by terenz:
Actually I'd wager on a statistical basis, it's a lot more dangerous. It's unlikely you'll be in a helicopter incident but on a basis of incidents per flight or flight time or distance flown, I'd wager it's statistically more dangerous than flying with a scheduled commercial carrier.</font>
I think terenz has a point. If you think about it, commercial flights avoid terrain (or at least give it a wide berth), while sightseeing flights, by their nature, fly low and slow near terrain. Quite a few sightseeing accidents in Hawaii were controlled flight into terrain in low visibility conditions. It should also be pointed out that there is some debate over the effects of prolonged low-altitude operations over an active volcano. There are large amounts of corrsive sulfuric gasses in such area and they cannot be good when ingested into a turbine engine. I want to say that pilots avoid flying and hovering into the gas plumes around the ocean entry points of lava flows and steam vents over this concern.

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