When Rescuers Needed Rescuing: A Helicopter Crash During a Training Exercise

On 11 May 2006, joint Russian-Japanese exercises were being held in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the southern coast of Sakhalin. The drills focused on rescuing vessels in distress and responding to oil spills.

Russia, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea had signed an agreement on cooperation in combating oil spills in the North Pacific. The agreement also provided for mutual assistance between the four countries in responding to other emergencies at sea. Japan was represented in the exercise by one coast guard vessel, two oil recovery vessels and one helicopter. Russia deployed seven vessels and four helicopters.

One of the Russian aircraft was a Mi-14PS amphibious search-and-rescue helicopter, capable of landing on water, taxiing across the surface and taking off again. The Mi-14 was developed from the Mi-8 helicopter. The Mi-14PS variant carried ten life rafts, each with a capacity of 20 people, and a rescue winch capable of lifting three people at a time. It was also equipped with searchlights.

The helicopter could additionally be used to carry external sling loads, deploy naval troops and perform general transport operations. To increase its flight range, two auxiliary fuel tanks could be installed in the passenger compartment.

The Mi-14PS was practising the recovery of people from a boat in Aniva Bay. However, immediately after taking off from the water, at an altitude of approximately five metres, the thrust of both engines suddenly dropped almost to flight idle, or around 60%, while the main rotor speed fell to 48%.

The helicopter descended sharply and made a hard landing on the water. The impact partially destroyed a fairing beneath the forward section of the fuselage, allowing water to enter the helicopter through the resulting gaps.

The crew did not notice the flooding. After the pilots managed to restore engine speed, they decided to take off immediately. By that time, approximately 1.5 tonnes of water had entered the helicopter, shifting its centre of gravity and increasing its overall weight. High waves made the situation worse by causing severe longitudinal pitching.

During the attempted take-off, the helicopter's nose dug into the water. The main rotor blades struck the surface at an angle, began to disintegrate and effectively severed the tail boom.

The impact also caused the landing gear to deploy spontaneously after the electrical wiring short-circuited in the seawater. As a result, the helicopter overturned and began drifting upside down on the surface.

There were five crew members, seven rescue workers and one journalist on board. Twelve people managed to escape from the helicopter on their own and were rescued by a Japanese coast guard vessel and a Russian rescue ship.

One of the helicopter's crewmen suffered a spinal fracture. Divers managed to extract him from the partially submerged aircraft, but he died while being transported to hospital.

The overturned helicopter was towed to shore and lifted from the water by port cranes. An examination of the damage and interviews with the crew made it possible to establish the immediate cause of the accident relatively quickly. Investigators concluded that the probable cause of the loss of engine power was icing of the air intakes.

It should be noted that the Mi-14PS remained afloat even after overturning and sustaining significant structural damage. In other words, had the crew decided not to attempt another take-off following the hard landing, the accident might have been avoided.

Despite the serious incident involving the helicopter, the exercises were declared successfully completed.