April 11, 2025 • 6 mins
John Nance speaks to Mendte in the Morning about the helicopter crash over the Hudson River yesterday and how the tragedy may have occurred.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now is ABC News World, ABC World News.
Excuse me, Aviation analyst and author John Natz, Good to
be with you and have you on this morning. John,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good to be back with you. How you doing doing
all right, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Six people, including three children, killed in that helicopter crash
in New York' Hudson River. It was a Bell two
six L four long range of four helicopter. How safe
is a helicopter like that?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Usually? Really amazingly safe? In the first twenty years of
the two eighth production record, it was at one time
considered the safest single engine aircraft of any sort in
the world. I don't know if it's hung on to
that title then, of course a lot of them are
twin engine now. But it is a workhorse helicopter, there's
no question about it. And they just do not come
(00:46):
apart in the air with any degree of regularity. This
was a very unusual accident, and I think the board,
the National Transporation Safety Board, is going to have quite
a bit of a work cut out for them try
to figure out exactly what broken how.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
At this point we can only speculate, obviously, but is
it different from when a helicopter flies continuously like this
over say, brackish waters, where you have salt, you have
moisture in the air, as opposed to a helicopter that
flies in an arid environment like Arizona.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, I won't tell you that it's inconceivable, but it's
close to it because the part of the maintenance schedule
only anytime you're around salt water. It involves spray and
stilled water in the engines, the turban engines, and taking
care of all the other things to make sure the
corrosion doesn't occur. Corrosion is the biggest danger to anything
(01:37):
with a lot of aluminum. Then of course helicopters have
a lot of aluminum.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Obviously, when you have a winged plane, if the engine
stalls out, you could usually kind of act as a
glider until you could find someplace to put it down
for a little bit at least while there's enough lift
on the plane. With a helicopter, if it's not a
matter of just autorotating to come down, there's really nothing
much that a pilot can do. When what happened happened, right.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, everything depends on that rotor system that holds the
brades on and creates the lift that that's all the
helicopter has. As long as that is working, you can
auto rotate without an engine. In other words, they shut
the engine down or have it fail and still be
able to get down safely. But if that rotor system fails,
that's your only source of lift. You're simply out of
(02:23):
the game. It becomes ballistic.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So obviously the pilot must have realized at that moment
when he had no control that pretty much all bets
were off, and that was one thousand feet in the air,
terrifying the last.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Moments, probably a very long four to six seconds between
the time this occurred. And there is indication here, by
the way, and I don't want to prejudge the accident,
that's nero wise idea, but there is an indication that
what happened involved the rotor blades, when there are two
of them, one on each side, began to hit the
(02:57):
tail of the aircraft until they broke off. Now that
the reason I say that is because there was a
report of what sounded like gunshots. And the only thing
really that makes sense on that is if the chopper
is beginning to cut into itself with the blades in
a then balanced situation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, there was a video that I saw that came
out this morning. In fact, I saw it on CNN
in front of my face where I'm sitting right now,
that where it looked like the major rotor, the large
one on top, not the tail. The large one was
flipping in full circular fashion on its own, not attached
to the helicopter, coming down into the water, still spinning
by the way, so amazing. So that would suggest that
(03:39):
it obviously detached. So that would make sense if and
again we're speculating here, we don't know, but if it's
somehow if some of the controls that control that surface
caused it to bend into the tail, that could possibly
account for that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Then, and this is not unprecedented in helicopter operations of
different sorts worldwide. It's not a common thing. But you're
basically running those rotors as a whirling disc, and that
it's the same provides to lift. But if that disc
kilts in the wrong direction too far, whether because of
the misapplication of the controls or something breaks, that's where
(04:15):
you can begin to eat and basically have the chopper
eat itself.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
All right, Well, we'll find out more, of course, the
NTSB on the scene right now doing their investigating, and
I'm sure they'll be there for at least a few
days to get.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
As much foss.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, John Nts, ABC News World Aviation analyst and author.
We had another incident, a plane carrying New York and
New Jersey representatives involved in a minor collision involving the
winglets at DC at Reagan right at Reagan National. What's
going on with the airport? I know it's very busy,
and I also know the reps want to keep it
busy because they don't want to have to travel an
(04:48):
hour to get to an airport. But what is going
on there?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, first of all, one of the problems you're going
down a taxi way. You've got a white line to follow,
and you're going to be one airplane at the time
to a breast. But when you get to the area
at the end of the runway, there's a large expanse
of concrete. You may have hold lines, but you don't
have center lines. And if you're going to pull up
alongside of or get on the runway before another airplane,
(05:14):
you've got to look out to the left or to
look out to the right and make a judgment on
how close you are, and that's difficult to do. Our
binocular vision as human beings, does not really extend that
far out there, eighteen to twenty feet within the accuracy.
Then you're looking at maybe one hundred feet and trying
to determine whether or not you've got enough clearance. You
can look at shadows on the ground, you can look
(05:35):
at a lot of things, but we're dealing with human beings,
fallible humans, and I think that what we're going to
find in this particular situation is somebody just misestimated the
distance that he or she had in between those wing tips.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well, that is amazing. And of course those planes they're
going to have to replace the wingtips of winglets, I'm
sure before they can allow those things back in the air.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh absolutely, And there be some testing involved too before
they can be signed off. But I'll tell you, if
you wanted to get attention on a congressional basis, that's
certainly a way to do it. Load up a bunch
of congressmen and senators and have something minor happen. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
John NaN's World News, aviation analyst and author. Thank you
so much. I know you're very busy, We appreciate you
coming on this morning.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Thank you appreciating
Joining us now is ABC News World, ABC World News.
Excuse me, Aviation analyst and author John Natz, Good to
be with you and have you on this morning. John,
thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Good to be back with you. How you doing doing
all right, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Six people, including three children, killed in that helicopter crash
in New York' Hudson River. It was a Bell two
six L four long range of four helicopter. How safe
is a helicopter like that?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Usually? Really amazingly safe? In the first twenty years of
the two eighth production record, it was at one time
considered the safest single engine aircraft of any sort in
the world. I don't know if it's hung on to
that title then, of course a lot of them are
twin engine now. But it is a workhorse helicopter, there's
no question about it. And they just do not come
(00:46):
apart in the air with any degree of regularity. This
was a very unusual accident, and I think the board,
the National Transporation Safety Board, is going to have quite
a bit of a work cut out for them try
to figure out exactly what broken how.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
At this point we can only speculate, obviously, but is
it different from when a helicopter flies continuously like this
over say, brackish waters, where you have salt, you have
moisture in the air, as opposed to a helicopter that
flies in an arid environment like Arizona.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, I won't tell you that it's inconceivable, but it's
close to it because the part of the maintenance schedule
only anytime you're around salt water. It involves spray and
stilled water in the engines, the turban engines, and taking
care of all the other things to make sure the
corrosion doesn't occur. Corrosion is the biggest danger to anything
(01:37):
with a lot of aluminum. Then of course helicopters have
a lot of aluminum.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Obviously, when you have a winged plane, if the engine
stalls out, you could usually kind of act as a
glider until you could find someplace to put it down
for a little bit at least while there's enough lift
on the plane. With a helicopter, if it's not a
matter of just autorotating to come down, there's really nothing
much that a pilot can do. When what happened happened, right.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, everything depends on that rotor system that holds the
brades on and creates the lift that that's all the
helicopter has. As long as that is working, you can
auto rotate without an engine. In other words, they shut
the engine down or have it fail and still be
able to get down safely. But if that rotor system fails,
that's your only source of lift. You're simply out of
(02:23):
the game. It becomes ballistic.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
So obviously the pilot must have realized at that moment
when he had no control that pretty much all bets
were off, and that was one thousand feet in the air,
terrifying the last.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Moments, probably a very long four to six seconds between
the time this occurred. And there is indication here, by
the way, and I don't want to prejudge the accident,
that's nero wise idea, but there is an indication that
what happened involved the rotor blades, when there are two
of them, one on each side, began to hit the
(02:57):
tail of the aircraft until they broke off. Now that
the reason I say that is because there was a
report of what sounded like gunshots. And the only thing
really that makes sense on that is if the chopper
is beginning to cut into itself with the blades in
a then balanced situation.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, there was a video that I saw that came
out this morning. In fact, I saw it on CNN
in front of my face where I'm sitting right now,
that where it looked like the major rotor, the large
one on top, not the tail. The large one was
flipping in full circular fashion on its own, not attached
to the helicopter, coming down into the water, still spinning
by the way, so amazing. So that would suggest that
(03:39):
it obviously detached. So that would make sense if and
again we're speculating here, we don't know, but if it's
somehow if some of the controls that control that surface
caused it to bend into the tail, that could possibly
account for that.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Then, and this is not unprecedented in helicopter operations of
different sorts worldwide. It's not a common thing. But you're
basically running those rotors as a whirling disc, and that
it's the same provides to lift. But if that disc
kilts in the wrong direction too far, whether because of
the misapplication of the controls or something breaks, that's where
(04:15):
you can begin to eat and basically have the chopper
eat itself.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
All right, Well, we'll find out more, of course, the
NTSB on the scene right now doing their investigating, and
I'm sure they'll be there for at least a few
days to get.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
As much foss.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, John Nts, ABC News World Aviation analyst and author.
We had another incident, a plane carrying New York and
New Jersey representatives involved in a minor collision involving the
winglets at DC at Reagan right at Reagan National. What's
going on with the airport? I know it's very busy,
and I also know the reps want to keep it
busy because they don't want to have to travel an
(04:48):
hour to get to an airport. But what is going
on there?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, first of all, one of the problems you're going
down a taxi way. You've got a white line to follow,
and you're going to be one airplane at the time
to a breast. But when you get to the area
at the end of the runway, there's a large expanse
of concrete. You may have hold lines, but you don't
have center lines. And if you're going to pull up
alongside of or get on the runway before another airplane,
(05:14):
you've got to look out to the left or to
look out to the right and make a judgment on
how close you are, and that's difficult to do. Our
binocular vision as human beings, does not really extend that
far out there, eighteen to twenty feet within the accuracy.
Then you're looking at maybe one hundred feet and trying
to determine whether or not you've got enough clearance. You
can look at shadows on the ground, you can look
(05:35):
at a lot of things, but we're dealing with human beings,
fallible humans, and I think that what we're going to
find in this particular situation is somebody just misestimated the
distance that he or she had in between those wing tips.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well, that is amazing. And of course those planes they're
going to have to replace the wingtips of winglets, I'm
sure before they can allow those things back in the air.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh absolutely, And there be some testing involved too before
they can be signed off. But I'll tell you, if
you wanted to get attention on a congressional basis, that's
certainly a way to do it. Load up a bunch
of congressmen and senators and have something minor happen. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
John NaN's World News, aviation analyst and author. Thank you
so much. I know you're very busy, We appreciate you
coming on this morning.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Thank you appreciating
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