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Copter pilot tells how instinct saved the dayJust don't call me
a hero, says veteran aviator
Niall Fraser Jul 11, 2010
Helicopter pilot Richard Moffatt is no fan of what he calls the
"H" word, but few would arguethat he is a bona fide hero. If it
hadn't been for his lightning-sharp reactions, years of training
andwealth of flying experience, Hong Kong could have been mourning
one of its worst-ever air disasters.
The self-effacing Moffatt was at the controls of a Macau-bound
AgustaWestland AW139helicopter with 13 passengers and crew on board
when it suffered a massive failure in its tailseconds after
take-off from the Shun Tak Centre helipad in Sheung Wan last
Saturday morning.At that moment, father-of-three Moffat, 45, his
Macanese first officer, Fernando Sun Keng-pong,
and the men and women passengers heading for a relaxing weekend
in Asia's gaming capitalwere plunged into a nightmare scenario.The
English and naturalised Australian pilot from Sky Shuttle has
revealed how, after what isacknowledged as a brilliant piece of
flying to get the helicopter safely onto the water, he divedinto
Victoria Harbour twice from the stricken aircraft to help
distressed passengers cast adrift inthe choppy swell of one of the
world's busiest waterways. He has also told how, a week after
theordeal, he awakes in the middle of the night, replaying the
incident in his head and wondering:"Could I have done
more?''Amazingly, just five days after what could easily have been
a tragedy, Moffatt was back in the
pilot's seat. It would have been sooner, was it not for the fact
that his licence remains at the bottom of the harbour.
"I got my [new] pilot's licence on Thursday lunchtime and
immediately went to the heliport and put myself on a flight," he
said. "It was surprisingly fine. I didn't know how I was going to
reactonce I sat in the aircraft, but I got in with a training
captain and it was okay. If anything, thisincident has increased my
confidence in this aircraft and in myself. I wanted to do a flight
asquickly as I could, before I could change my mind. It was the
same for Fernando, he just got hislicence back on Friday and got
straight back in."However, listening to a man who said he wanted to
be a pilot from the tender age of four recountthe dramatic
circumstances of his first real-life in-flight emergency, it was
easy to understand if he never wanted to see the inside of a
helicopter again.Moffatt recalled how, despite the speed and
severity of the situation, his training took over."We took off
towards Stonecutters Island into the wind. It was an absolutely
standard departure,"he said. "But as we were passing about 300
feet, literally five seconds after we completed thetake-off checks,
we heard a big bang at the rear of the aircraft. The whole airframe
started toswerve to the right and there was a very severe
vibration. The vibration was most notable throughthe pedals which
control the yaw (swerve) of the aircraft, so I diagnosed there was
a problemwith the tail rotor. It was fairly clear to me that we had
a tail rotor failure."The only way to resolve that was to enter
into auto-rotation. This basically means taking all
power off the main rotors which takes the torque out of the
system. I then asked Fernando toswitch the engines to `Off' and we
auto-rotated to within about 100 feet of the water."The veteran
pilot, who has 18 years of offshore flying experience in the United
States, Thailand,Myanmar and West Africa, compared the descent of
10 to 15 seconds towards the water as "like asycamore leaf falling
from a tree". Quite a metaphor, especially as he was talking about
hundredsof tonnes of helicopter falling out of the sky at 1,500 to
2,000 feet a minute."At about 30 to 50 feet, I levelled the
aircraft and that cushioned us onto the water," he said,
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before adding with heavy understatement: "It was largely an
uneventful landing - apart from thefact that it was on water. It
was a one-way ticket down but my training just clicked in. From
thestart of the event until we hit the water, I had no idea how the
passengers were reacting. Bothmyself and Fernando were kind of
busy!"
Neither did the pair have time to reflect on the highly skilled
yet instinctive emergency landing - behind them were 13 terrified
people in a chaotic cabin taking in water. "As soon as we hit
thewater, the floats activated automatically and our job was to get
everyone out. The passengerswere surprisingly well behaved. They
took my directions. It maybe took 10 to 15 seconds fromthe event
happening to us touching the water. I don't think there was time
for panic."Moffatt said most of the passengers got out with their
life jackets on, but in the confusion someleft the helicopter
without. "There was one passenger who went out with his friend and
didn'thave a life jacket, so I went into the water to make sure he
was okay."The plucky pilot then swam back to the chopper to help
two people who could not find life
jackets. "They were still there under the seats, but at that
point there was some confusion so I persuaded both of them to leave
the aircraft with seat cushions, which are designed as
buoyancyaids."
Prior to that he had gone to the aid of a distressed woman in
her mid-20s who had a life jacketround her neck but had not tied it
on. "While all this happened Fernando was right beside theaircraft,
he was doing a wonderful job. English wasn't the first language of
the majority of the
passengers, so he was giving instructions in Cantonese and
Mandarin."By the time the pilots got the last two passengers into
the water, three fishing boats were alreadythere and had picked up
some of them."Police launches were on the scene very quickly and
they did the headcount. Once I was certainwe had the 13 people out
of the water, I was able to relax a little," Moffatt said."It
wasn't until Fernando and I were on the ferry back to Macau a few
hours later that eveningand there was no one else around that what
had happened hit home."There was the realisation of what could have
happened and there was also self-doubt - did I do
the right thing? Did I do the best I could? Was there something
else I could have done to not havegone into the water?"You read
about pilots in emergency situations and you think, `If that had
been me, would I have
been able to pull that off?' It's nice to know that 18 years of
flying have paid off."I don't want to sound like some sort of
super-pilot because I am not; it is instinct, the training isthere
to make this reaction second nature. I just hope this is a
once-in-a-career event.
