Bell 206B Jet Ranger Helicopter G-ODIL

Yorkshire Helicopters 24 October 1997
Pilot: uninjured (and anonymous)

Newspapers, both local and national, asked not to divulge the pilot’s identity, chose to honour the request; neither is it Air Accident Investigation Branch policy to publish names. Helicopters have been widely employed in conservation and restoration work in the Peak District, one of their major tasks being to airlift stone slabs from redundant mills to be laid as paving in the style of the medieval ‘causey paths’ over the most boot-eroded sections of the area’s peaty tracks. Among other tasks have been the airlifting of fencing materials; of heather tops from lower moors for reseeding denuded moorland; and of water for fighting fires.

Hiring helicopters, although expensive, has proved to make economic sense, one of the many advantages being that the moors do not suffer the damage caused by surface vehicles. Indeed the ground was barely marked when Jet Ranger G-ODIL suffered a dynamic-rollover upset – effectively, tipping itself over – in the course of lifting stone from the shoulder of Ashop Head, at the summit of Kinder’s William Clough.

A first load, at an estimated weight of one thousand pounds, had been successfully lifted. However, the steep and restricted nature of the 1,750-feet-above-sea-level site had made it difficult to turn into wind, so that, without the assistance of the full wind speed, the helicopter had required its maximum torque to lift off, and then move forwards from the hover. Notwithstanding this, the second load proffered was even heavier; only then the pilot was quite unable to accomplish the transition to forward flight. He tried to set the load down again, but as a skid made contact with the ground a rolling motion was imparted and the helicopter, with its ability to respond to corrective lateral control now diminished, tipped onto its side.

The pilot was unhurt, but the machine sustained extensive damage and was eventually airlifted to the A57 at Doctor’s Gate. Although the aircraft was severely damaged it was not that badly fragmented and in 2006 Pat reported that nothing remained, certainly on the surface of the site, the few scraps of debris left behind after the clear-up operation having been taken to the Hayfield Ranger’s station near Bowden Bridge, where they were still to be seen.