sakidbet Leicester Magistrates Court ruled in a public inquest into the helicopter crash at King Power Stadium that the cause was a broken tail rotor bearing, and the company responsible knew everything but failed to fix it before takeoff.

At 3pm UK time on January 28, Leicester Magistrates Court ruled in a public inquest into the helicopter crash at King Power Stadium. The jury ruled in the case of the Leonardo AW169 helicopter crash at King Power Stadium six years ago, which resulted in the deaths of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, Eric Swaffer, Isabella Lechowicz, Nusara Suknamai and Kaveporn Punprae, due to an unexpected and unforeseen accident. sakidbet

The evidence presented during the inquest indicated a fundamental engineering failure by Leonardo, which was caused by a breakage of the tail rotor bearings on the helicopter, leading to the failure of the tail rotor system, causing the helicopter to lose control and causing the tragedy.

This defect was present during the design of the helicopter and had never been corrected.

After a two-week inquest, the jury heard that the helicopter had crashed despite being new, properly maintained, certified and had not been found to have made any pilot errors during the flight.

Captain Eric was a highly skilled and experienced pilot who had made every effort to control the helicopter after the tail rotor failed shortly after takeoff from King Power Airport.

The evidence from the inquest indicated that this was merely an accident waiting to happen and that with the helicopter being designed in this way, it was inevitable that a major accident would eventually occur.

Leonardo was aware of the risk of a major accident from the helicopter design and was aware that the design had problems that could lead to failure.

A straightforward design revision of the helicopter, which had been carried out on Leonardo’s previous helicopters, could have prevented the incident of the rotor spinning out of control in the event of bearing failure. However, for some inexplicable reason, Leonardo decided not to fix the defect in this helicopter.

During the design process of the helicopter, Leonardo had numerous opportunities to identify and correct these risks, but all of them were ignored. Strangely, Leonardo’s engineers initially assessed and analyzed that if the bearing failed, the steel shaft controlling the tail rotor would break off, but not come off. In fact, the shaft had come off the nut that held it in place. For

some reason, Leonardo did not send the results of the flight test to the helicopter parts manufacturer, which showed that the compressive forces acting on the tail rotor system were much greater than Leonardo’s theoretical model had calculated. Leonardo

‘s statistical assumptions were also significantly off. The bearing, which had a life of 2,400 hours, failed after only 330 hours of operation.

Further investigation by the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), found three other bearings in a similar condition, which were about to fail. and the end of its lifespan, much earlier than expected.

Ultimately, this tragic incident has highlighted serious shortcomings in the design, testing and risk assessment processes of the Italian manufacturer Leonardo. Vichai’s family continues to seek justice and accountability for this incident.

The family of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha have suffered an incredible amount of grief and loss as the helicopter crash continues to be discussed. Vichai’s son, Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, said:

“My father had faith in this helicopter and it was Leonardo’s responsibility to ensure its safety. In reality, it was not safe and it was a tragedy. “

Our family would like to thank Professor Mason for conducting this inquest, which has brought new attention to what happened on 27 October 2018. “

He was a great leader of our family, a caring and dedicated husband, a father and grandfather whom we loved dearly. We still feel his loss every day.

“He was a leader with vision and conviction, and a true example of success through determination and action, which words cannot fully express. “

We would like to thank the City of Leicester for their warm and overwhelming support. We will miss him and his passing will always be in our hearts,” Aiyawatt concluded. ( sakidbet )