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Brief preliminary report with a few pictures .... they are looking at Main Gearbox and support struts

Also has a map showing the debris field .... some stuff would have drifted around in the ocean , but notice one Main Rotor part a long ways from where the rest landed.

Hope the link works .... PDF

http://www.aibn.no/Om-oss/Nyhetsarkiv/H ... e&attach=1

didn't work here... just got an error

I tested it after I posted it and it worked .... just now I tried and it doesn't work .... in the meantime a (poorly) translated news article

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... t=&act=url

looking at the epicyclic & bull gear smearing looks like a mast fracture.

If it lost a link and lost the whole tranny that gear set would be snug and safe in the main top housing. not smeared crud on the teeth like that.

most likely a fracture came from the area of rework listed in an AD for the mast to gear spin welded area corrosion and cracking . after the crack went mostly around the mast it caused a misalignment and the outer ring of the carrier contacting the outer case gear (teeth markings on the otherwise smooth surface) whirl forces chewed up the upper housing and pop goes the top.

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Link fixed (I hope)

http://www.aibn.no/Om-oss/Nyhetsarkiv/H ... e&attach=1

Got it.... it was prolly busy... lots of people trying to get it at the same time?

Edit: with the history of transmission problems, I wouldn't be surprised if the trans broke and suddenly stopped, the inertia of the rotors would simply shear off the top of the mast? Sad

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Appears to be a planetary gear failure .... I have never seen this setup before .... the gear itself is also the outer bearing race. Normally a bearing has both its own races and then pressed into a gear.

Gearbox was changed in January but it was an exchange unit and not every part gets changed at every overhaul .... rumor it was damaged in shipping first time it was sent , , had to be returned to the overhaul place , then sent back to be installed in the heli. May not be true and may not have anything to do with the accident.

Here is the report with a picture of the gear with 3 roller bearings missing ... get one of those loose rollers jammed between other gears and stuff will start breaking

http://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/869 ... -released/

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At one time the Puma gearbox has a whole bunch of very powerful magnets all around the inside of the transmission ... the idea was they would trap any chipped teeth or stray roller bearings or debris before it could fall down into another gearset.

Trouble was , it prevented even tiny metal fragments from reaching the magnetic chip sensors and thus no warning lights show up in the cockpit .... so airbus removed all those magnets

Hard to say what would be best , those magnets may have caught the stray rollers but the pilots would not know the gearbox was beginning to fail and just kept flying.

typical setup hueys have it and sikorskys too I don't think that was the problem as the carrier was smeared and bent (they don't bend easily) and the gears have no axil loads radial loads only transferring torque from the lower spline set to the mast spline set.

If the mast cracked and went elliptical and pulled up on the carrier it would lock the gears and exit the case violently.

Gear box Pieces where found all over the place up to 2500 t0 3500 feet away from the flight path,

So much power rides on so little things. It makes one wonder if in the good old days when they just didn't give the rat's ass about extra 5-10-15-20 pounds and over engineered shit just to be on the safe side.
I ain't against new technology and space age material but......old school sometimes just being proven more reliable by the thousands of hours they have been in the air.......
So sad. These guys didn't even know what hit them.

I think if I owned a puma of any description, I would be putting a phucking great big ballistic chute on the airframe.... and a big red 'smash it' button on the dash.... so when the rotors fall off, smash the button and maybe have a chance

2 more different links....

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-nor ... d-36431996

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-nor ... d-36181255

Emergency AD all Pumas are grounded, just got it. The fleets dead.

I'd buy one for 5 bux. Those things are obviously garbage

It is actually quite a shame imo

They have been a great work horse.... Hopefully they will upgrade the transmissions with something more bullet proof and they can retrofit and get back on with the job

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Super Pumas Finished in North Sea

CHC bosses have said they plan to end their use of the EC225s on North Sea flights. The company has said the model will no longer fly unless customers call for model to be used.

The move by CHC comes less than a week after the European Air Safety Agency (EASA) said the Super Puma model should be grounded. That directive came after Norwegian investigators revealed the gearbox as the likely cause of the accident in Norway that killed 13 people.

http://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/877 ... north-sea/

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In these days of small, clear, lightweight cameras... and face/shape recognition software, surely there could be a camera looking at the rotor head and mast and the TR box or wherever they deem necessary, so as part of the preflight (or just because you can) you could look via the camera at the mast/head as the rotor winds down or starts up... the cameras noticing if anything has changed/is wrong/has moved....

I think it is silly to write off a model that has done millions of safe hours because 2 have had issues? In this day and age, they know what the issues are with the transmissions and how to make them stronger/better... the company just has to be allowed to improve the gearbox without the widows all suing the manufacturer because them 'improving' the gearbox is like admitting that they were no good (like Jabaru motors).... Jab knows perfectly well that to stop valves burning, all they have to do is fit water cooled heads and a small radiator.... but they cant... because the air cooled heads are certified... so to add water cooled heads, they would have to re certify the motor .... Plus... all of the widows would have a field day in court...

Litigation has alot to answer for these days... it is out of control... Litigation and political correctness will be the end of our crack at civilization.... we will end up falling to bits like Rome, when it collapsed... I would say, in the next 5 or 6 generations too.... not far away...

Grounded again ! all 5 US registered pumas - LASD is screwed..... Main gear box epi-cyclic gears ....JUNK!

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There was mention (rumor) that the transmission had some shipping damage done to it before it was installed in the helicopter back in January

Turns out to be true , and the truck driver was killed in the crash in Australia so it must have banged stuff around pretty good.

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Not a good week for Bell ... they lost a prototype Bell 525 Relentless helicopter while it was undergoing certification testing

http://www.verticalmag.com/news/two-kil ... ght-tests/

The Bell 525 was intended to be direct competition to the Eurocopter EC225 and the Sikorksy S-92 for offshore oil work.

With oil prices in the tank , cutbacks on the rigs , big heli companies filing chapter 11 , will make for tough times for those 3 big helicopter manufacturers.

Thanks for that article Arnie.
I am so sad ...... poor saps.
Very depressing what does on with the company.
With the whole industry for that matter.
We have reached a critical point where the direction of the tipping will determine our future.
I am glad to be this old!