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THE PRELIMINARY REPORT into the final moments of Rescue 116 has been released this evening by the Air Accident Investigation Unit Ireland.
Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 116 disappeared off the north coast of Mayo after providing communications cover for a medical rescue in March of this year.
The report finds that the Rescue 116 hit Black Rock island, where some of the helicopter debris was found.
It also found that the island wasn’t registered on the crew’s internal mapping system:
In relation to Black Rock and its Lighthouse, the EGPWS manufacturer informed the Investigation that “The lighthouse obstacle is not in the obstacle database and the terrain of the island is not in our terrain database.”
“The Rescue 116 recording contains no reference by the crew to the presence of a lighthouse or terrain at Black Rock during their briefing for APBSS.”
A rear crew member of Rescue 116 identified an island approximately 13 seconds prior to the initial impact with terrain, according to the report.
Although the report states at the start that it “does not contain analysis or conclusions”, it does make two ‘interim recommendations’ based on its findings:
CHC Ireland should review/re-evaluate all route guides in use by its Search and Rescue helicopters in Ireland, with a view to enhancing the information provided on obstacle heights and positions, terrain clearance, vertical profile, the positions of waypoints in relation to obstacles and EGPWS database terrain and obstacle limitations.
It also said RFD Beaufort Ltd should “review the viability of the installation provisions and instructions for locator beacons on Mk 44 lifejackets”.
Black box voice recorder
The last moments recorded by the black box recorder listed in the report were:
Rear Crew Channel: “K… looking at an island just in, directly ahead of us now guys, you want to come right [Commander’s Name]”
Commander: “OK, come right just confirm?”
Rear Crew Channel: “About… twenty degrees right yeah.”
Commander: “OK Come Right… select heading.”
Co-pilot: “Roger… Heading selected.”
Rear Crew Channel: “Come right now. come right. COME RIGHT.”
Smoke in baggage.
Co-pilot: “[Expletive] OOOHHHH [Expletive].”
Co-pilot “We’re gone.”
The helicopter
The report says that the helicopter “rapidly pitched nose up” during the two seconds prior to the initial impact.
Following the initial impact, the data indicates that the helicopter climbed while experiencing large changes in pitch, roll and yaw angles.
The report lists the timeline of events through referencing the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR or black box), the log of what controls were used or triggered during the flight, and external evidence such as mapping systems, weather reports and flight safety features.
Among a list of bullet pointed events that lead to the impact, the report says that the crew were “mission-focused and considered” with minimal extraneous conversation.
It also says that both the pilot and co-pilot had commented that it had been a while since either of them had been to Blacksod.
The pilot briefed the crew on the plan for arrival at the lighthouse.
Wreckage
Debris from the helicopter was found on Black Rock Island, the report found:
The horizontal stabiliser was found on the rock, adjacent to an outhouse which was close to the lighthouse. Tiles on the roof of the outhouse exhibited damage, consistent with being struck by falling debris.
Fractured sections of the Intermediate Gear Box (IGB) centre housing, including the oil level sensor and a portion of the chip detector, as well as the IGB fairing which was broken into four distinct pieces, were found on the rock.
Among the items found on the seabed were:
The cabin floor/lower fuselage had separated from the lower fuselage aft of the nose landing gear area and was lying forward of its normal location.
The right hand Main Landing Gear and its sponson had separated from the fuselage. The assembly was found on the sea bed adjacent to the main wreckage.
The winch operator’s control console was lying close to the cabin floor section.
The Sikorsky S-92A helicopter’s safety features and mechanics are listed (which includes emergency exits and flotation devices).
It found that all four lighthouses in the area “were operational over the period of interest” (Eagle Island, Blacksod, Black Rock and Achillbeg).
According to Met Éireann, visibility was 2-3km and weather that evening for “all Irish coastal waters and the Irish Sea contained occasional light rain or drizzle and patchy mist and fog.”
Investigators say that the final report will be published in due course.
The investigation will consider a number of factors including organisation and management of the mission, the operator’s procedures and guidance, helicopter systems, navigation, mapping and charting, human performance, aircraft performance, survival aspects, ergonomics, oversight, risk management and a deeper analysis of the recorded data and recovered wreckage.
The Air Accident Investigations Unit’s preliminary report on the incident is available to read in full here.
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Surely the question of how these overpayments were made in the first instance is the one that requires a fast answer. I’m not naive enough to think that any incompetent individuals who are employed within the public service will be taken to task over this diabolical waste of taxpayers money, however at least try and get the system in place to accept responsibility.
@jo mixon: if you don’t sign off straight away once you take up a job you can still collect your payment, I’ve known people to do it to get them over working a back week. You are then sent a bill but it’s never chased up, they figure they’ll get it next time you sign on. I’m sure there are other ways, that’s the only one I’m familiar with.
@jo mixon: that’s not how it works. When one applies for a welfare payment you are expected to claim in good faith – handing over all details as you claim.
There’s cases of people not declaring savings/investments which put them in excess of €20,000/50,000 rule sitting in other accounts…
There’s cases where someone was awarded compensation from an accident-declaring this means your social welfare is reduced until the compensation is spent or drops below a certain amount etc.
Then there’s people claiming and working for cash… or have different identities with different PPS numbers. The whole PSC card system is designed to stop the latter.
@Emachine: or if your signing dockets ( casual ) some people work 7 days and claim for the lot also I knew a few guys who were at that coming out with a full weeks wages plus dole. The job was delivering newspapers 5am to 10am 7 days then some of them would head off and do nixers building etc for cash 2 jobs plus the dole.
@In my opinion: They should be black listed from any welfare of any kind
(social housing, state pension, health impacts) as a result of doing things like this
@Darren Norris: they get reduced welfare until the overpayments are cleared.
I wouldn’t exclude them altogether as they may be left destitute eg an OAP who ‘forgot’ to declare he was left a second property valued at €60,000 and currently unable to sell it…
@Emachine: declaring you are working (temping) while on lone parent, this payment will be reduced depending on how much you earn, the welfare office saying we will work it out at a later stage.
@Emachine: this is 475 million quid , you would need over 2 million people claiming a week over payment for that to be the case – these numbers don’t add up , thats a HUGE amount of over payment , they have a LOT more accountability to answer for and work to do to eradicate this level of fraud , of course they should pursue with vigour , but we are all paying for this and it is just unacceptable in this day and age that the expensive card systems and expense of the Civil service itself is so wasteful and unaccountable – almost half a billion quid ??? There should be more outrage and people answerable to why this is so high in this day and age.
@Vic’s Burd: yeah , but thats almost a half a billion owed I am sure we can take account of the odd exceptional OAP and still overhaul this system – this should be an OUTRAGE that our money is being wasted scammed and inefficiently used to keep pens pushers as busy fools and enabling easy scamming of the system…..hard working people paying high taxes and trying to make ends meet are constantly being taken for a ride in this country – the PC nonsense will have to shift and bit more harsh reality /criticism and holding people to account is badly needed
@Vic’s Burd: sure couldn’t he come to an agreement with the state to transfer the 2nd property to the state pay him the difference them use the property for social housing. If they have over claimed there should be more than just a reduced payment as a deterrent
@Dave Hammond: have they taken into account the fraud from with in the department itself , early in 2018 there was a case of 2 sw officers (in the dept of sw head office in sligo i think) caught with over 250,000 in bank accounts under false names, they had made up sw accounts in the names of non existent and deceased claimants and had the money paid directly into bank accounts they had opened in those names -easily done when you have access to other peoples identities and documents – at the time it was said that there could be over 1000 other such false claims been made across the country by sw staff .
How much have politicians had written off with no chance of recovery for tax payer ?
@Willy Mc Caul:
Sure didn’t the minister for looking surprised herself sting the revenue for six figures.
@Willy Mc Caul: The story is about half a billion getting stolen from the people of the state
And the taxpayer is owed billions more in overpayments to politicians.
@Adrian: How do you figure that, exactly?
@George Salter: because they are paid far too much for the crap job they do!
@Dave Thomas: Still…billions? Thats a couple of thousand politicians being overpaid by a couple of million each. Unlikely
@Dave Thomas: No different to lots of other departments roles in the public sector…. should they all hand back pay cheques and bloated pensions that unions forced the country to pay for?
@Dave Thomas: Apply for the job then Davey
Why don’t travellers have to work for a living? Genuine question. I’ve always wondered.
Would employers not give them a chance?
Do they have to go through Tus and seetec programs ?
If anyone should be capable of recovering debt it’s the government, they make the rules after all and have access to almost every piece of information regarding someone’s finances. Half a billion quid is no joke.
@Emachine: no they don’t; and with GDPR it’s even more harder to get access to anyone’s information.
It’s up to you to declare your income, provide bank details and show you fall into the entitlement criterion,
People get caught during reviews: transfers to/from another account; compensation recipients; caught working or reported as fraudulently claiming.
@Vic’s Burd: given it is responsible for running welfare, pension and tax systems, including revenue, it has an enormous amount of data on the finances of every single one of us. I would hope all these services are allowed share data for the purposes of investigation, GDPR be damned. If they cannot, it’s no wonder the figure is so high.
Meanwhile apple owes the country 13 billion and sox is not bothered
@Marc Power: That has been paid in full.
@Marc Power: They paid up, and followed the correct rules of the time. This is half a billion people are stealing off everyone else in essence.
@Marc Power:
That’s currently in bank limbo – in a account waiting for the outcome – as FG burn through €600,000+ in legal fees (public money) so that they can give it BACK to Apple. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
When the culture in our politicians is grab as much as you can get as opposed to take what you deserve, that spreads down to society as well. There is a big gap between what our politicians are getting/taking and what they deserve. I guess the people on sw are just doing the same, grabbing as opposed to taking. Politicians and sw people are very similar in many ways, both have job suitability problems and both are massive liabilities to the state.
@Adrian: Will you still type the same BS even in the unlikely event that some leftie or SF party get elected?
You do relaise that wages in general and for 1 tiny group is a tiny fraction of the costs Ireland pays out?
What it does not say is how much people are owed in underpayments. . Might even balance up.
some of these ‘overpayments ‘ are actually mistakes made by staff at sw — cases where people have died and welfare has been informed – but the payments have continued even though they have not been collected — this happened with my friends uncle – he died in october 2017 and his state pension was still being paid into the post office into may 2018 — all the correct forms had been sent in and the post office manager had informed the sw that the man was deceased and that the payments should cease as well – but they kept on paying . obviously all the money was eventually returned to sw (it never really left them as it was never cashed) but you can bet your boots that cases like that will be included in this report …once again the blame is being put onto those in receipt of welfare -not those who are issuing it !
The state is apparently owed €13+ Billion in Apple tax. We don’t hear FG shouting about that do we or the billions being exported out of Ireland for PESCO (EU ARMY). FG is actually burning through €600k+ to legal oppose what is owed back. More double-standards.
It’s also more distraction antics by FG. Look this way while we are quietly up to no good again, in another direction.
@Unitedpeople: another shinnerbot in operation i see here.
Sur what do you expect when it’s thrown out Willy nilly
@Damien O’Cáthail: what an ill informed comment. You’ve obviously never had to navigate the dehumanizing applications system here?
@Damien O’Cáthail: it most certainly is not. You have obviously been fortunate enough in your life to never require assistance. It’s demeaning and makes you feel awful
@Marc Power: what are you talking about !!!! It’s over payment not actual payments . That’s half a billion that people were paid hat they were not entitled to .
@Aisling: what ??? This is over payment . So this is half a billion in tax payers money that could be used to help those in need of who need assistance . Read the bloody article .
@Marc Power: Life is not easy, making it easy as it is now is clearly the issue and it needs to be addressed
Lots of other things like this overspend in hospital etc do also, but in each area like this it needs to be stopped asap.
People want to help the homeless…this half a billion could go some way to that, but the selfish are stealing it.
@Darren Norris: so could the money spent on the e vote machines, the 1.4 billion for the children’s hospital the most expensive hospital in the world, the event centre in cork which required the government to cough up a few more million to their contractor buddies, the set up of the billing company Irish water, lets just let those few examples set in as opposed to the chump change spent in over payments by the social welfare.
@Darren Norris: so could the 13 billion sitting in limbo in a bank account from apple. Where’s your faux outrage about that vast sum and probably many vast sums from other crooked companies? Or is your venom reserved for the poor or those on benefits?
What about Revenues underpayments? I’m back to work almost 3 months and still waiting on illness benefit that got approved in July.
SW should be ashamed of itself. The Live Register is shrinking to around 5% but their staff still manage to pay out nilly Willy with no questions asked. Also they have converted 1000’s of those signing on for unemployment benefits to disability payments so to make the Live Register look respectable.
Regina needs to concentrate on her job
To make sure that taxpayers are not being fleeced.
@Irish big fellow: you just have to accept that about 5% of this country are wasters and don’t want to work and will do everything to scam etc money out of the state. We even have an ethnic culture here who job is to do just that. The is only one solution to the problem and that is to round them all up and then see what happens.
@IRL77: You were doing well until the round them all up bit.
@IRL77: nasty how you look at those unfortunate enough to claiming benefits. You must get dizzy looking down on people from your lofty tower
@IRL77: Is that your final solution?
It’s a pity the Journal cannot break down numbers but rather print the headline. Look to the averages that are owed and it tells a different picture. Plus outline the pitfalls that can lead to overpayments, then perhaps offer some suggestions on how our public service systems of SW payments can be improved using latest technologies. Perhaps.
Peanuts compared to everything we pay to politicians and councils…
I love the logic : let’s ask the money to people who have none and if they can’t pay let’s fine them. And how that will cost to recover case by case ?
Failed again !
@Dominic Leleu: Half a billion is peanuts to you? Well for some, but it is thieft
The vast majority claim because their low income only scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Which should be allowed. Cost of living is above minimum wage in this country.
The Whataboutery in this comments tread is ridiculous !
They will be paid back tomorrow.
Arf arf arf
Let’s see everyone marching on the streets over this ! Half a billion is a f#@-+! Joke .
Pittance compared to tax…….
And how much does the state owe to the public through unclaimed overpayment of PAYE!??
It’s owed a lot, lot more by one very rich company alone but is wasting millions in failing to collect it!
I swear il throw a 10r a week back
Just going to leave this here
I wonder when TDs overspend on there expenses do they have to pay it back
have your say