Or bad grammar.
In 1999 four crew members of the coast guard were killed when returning from a successful mission out around Dungarvan when they crashed into the sand hills in Tramore in heavy fog. I’d imagine this helicopter would have more advanced avionics though.
There is a fair amount of idle speculation and conjecture from people who are frankly grossly unqualified to comment.
In summary:
- hopes for finding survivors are directly linked to time elapsed since the incident. This is accelerated by factors such as temperature. @rocko will graph this shortly
- the actions of the pilot may have had a bearing on the outcome, this cannot be ruled out
- the arc required for a helicopter to prepare for landing is directly proportional to the diameter of the rotor blades, however it should be remembered that choppers without wheels need to hover land
- the Russians were not involved, raf are the most active enemy in our airspace
- raf links to bohs are well established
- if the coastguard flys over your house every weekend you should set up a residents conmittee and complain, the frequency of flights is directly linked to the decline in your property value together with the fact that most rural homes flood.
- the coastguards do a terrific job, they are the guardians of our waters
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What are your thoughts on the theory that shameless public fund raising by the RNLI has diverted valuable money away from the Coast Guard?
And that the RNLI are thus squarely to blame for this crash and have the blood of four Irish heroes on their hands?
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Donald Trump owns a few Sikorsky choppers. It’s probably his fault
Pilot who died had a 3 year old child who she (I think) had adopted.
Life can be shite.
Its most likely Donald rents his Sikorskys. Very few right minded people own aircraft or helipcopters these days, choosing to instead lease them from one of Ireland’s many aviation leasing companies.
Sounds like these particular helicopters had their share of problems.
Giving the amount of power passing through them, and enormous stresses placed on them, gearbox failures are almost ubiquitous in the world’s fleets of large helicopters and Sikorsky’s experience has been no exception. It was introduced around the turn of the century with a price tag of $90 million (€85m) and proved to be a very safe machine until a 2009 tragedy en route to a Newfoundland oil platform killed 17 people. A gearbox problem was blamed. A gearbox problem was also the cause of an emergency forced landing in Australia in 2008 when all the gearbox oil was found to have leaked away due to a flawed filter.
Black boxes
Several S-92 helicopters operating in the North Sea were later found to have cracked gearbox mounts but the most dramatic recent mechanical problem was highlighted in an official UK air safety report published in January which described how a worn bearing almost caused a serious accident on an S-92 landing on a North Sea oil rig. All S-92s, including the aircraft which crashed on Tuesday morning, were grounded for an emergency inspection of the bearing.
But the leaking gearbox oil issue uncovered in Australia in 2008 continues to cause controversy. Safety advocates say it may have also been at least partly responsible for the 2009 Newfoundland crash and they question why the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows the S-92 to operate without proving that it can fly safely for a limited time in the event of a sudden loss of gearbox oil.
Who the fuck asks, would you mind posing for a photo outside the mortuary where your dead relatives remains are?
Some who knows the importance of not making unnecessary journeys. that’s who.
Yet some people think this is an opportunity for very unfunny gags. 
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Terrible tragedy. I’d often see them fly over on the way out to rescue people on the cliffs or on boats.
How did captain Fitzgerald get out but the rest went down with the craft? Was it an explosion?
Total guess, but maybe in the event of engine failure the 'copter will fall tail first where the weight of the engine is?
They have detected the signal from the blackbox. Hopefully the bodies are located with the wreckage.
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Heartbreaking to listen to the father of that poor girl on the radio a while ago, the poor man was in Cheltenham when he got the news. Sounded like a real gent, I can’t imagine what he’s going through but he showed great humanity in suggesting that they were the lucky ones because at least they had a body. The parents had a stillborn child on the same date 39 years ago.
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It had 2 engines, neither of them were near the tail. In fact in the event of engine failure it’s still possible to land a helicopter through autorotation
The problem is that you have a very limited time to do something with the clutch or you drop like a stone. Wasn’t there also an issue with the clutch on the Sikorsky’s?
Never realised we had so many helicopter maintenance crews on TFK, it was the gearbox or clutch so. 
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Gearbox I think, one made an emergency landing in Australia some time ago due to gearbox oil leak, think the 17 that were killed in the north sea oil rig accident was also due to Sikorsky gearbox failure on the same helicopter
We’ve experts in many areas and idle speculation in many many more. It’s what makes this irelands premier website.
Perhaps you could link in with one of our sarcasm experts and polish your technique
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