Pilot seat that caused helicopter crash at 9 Wing Gander didn’t meet safety standards, report finds | CBC News
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An investigation into a helicopter crash at 9 Wing Air Force base in Gander in March 2022 found there were non-conformance issues with the pilot’s seat, which caused it to drop and disorient the pilot.
The crash happened on March 10 during a training exercise at the air base, sending all six of the CH-149 Cormorant helicopter’s crew members to hospital. Two people were treated for serious injuries.
The helicopter was hovering at the intersection of two runways when the pilot’s seat unexpectedly dropped about 12 centimetres — from its highest point to its lowest point.
The drop disoriented the pilot, according to the Royal Canadian Air Force’s report on the probe released on Friday. He told investigators he thought the helicopter was tilting right and overcorrected to the left. The change put the helicopter into an accelerated spin, turning about 400 degrees before it hit the runway and lost its main rotor blades.
The report said the helicopter was likely unrecoverable due to the velocity of the spin and that pilot fatigue was not an issue.
The report said an investigation of the pilot’s seat found two problems with its construction.
The seat’s lock pins, which lock it in place, were shorter than manufacturing requirements, according to the report. That could result in the pins not fully engaging with the locking mechanism, the report said, which could provide a false sense that the seat is locked.
The pins can’t be seen when the seat is fully constructed, the report added, meaning there is no opportunity for visual confirmation by the pilot to know the seat is locked in place.
The pilot checked whether the seat was locked before the flight by doing a “wiggle check,” according to the report, moving back and forth to make sure it was locked in place.
The report also found that the seat’s dual lever control assembly was likely out of adjustment, which paired with the shorter-than-regulation lock pins could have led to the seat not being locked in, despite feeling locked in.
The Air Force says seats not locking properly is a known issue among CH-149 Cormorant Aircraft — and was discussed among crew members before the flight started, according to the report.
The report recommends a method be developed to confirm that seats are locked before takeoff, along with putting inspections in place to check whether seats are too flexible.
The Canadian Armed Forces declined CBC News’s request for comment.
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