Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Another crash - Helicopter I-EDIC vs Jodel F-PMGV in Italy

A possible aggravating factor in all this, but not admitted as Peter might say, is a long standing (going back to 1860 when it became part of Italy) disagreement involving this glacier. Every now and then it flares up. Basically all roads leading to the region go through France. France decided to declare it an area of natural beauty and limit access. The Italian Government accuse France of trying to keep all the tourists for themselves.
This is the most recent dispute but as I wrote it goes back years, the disputes flare up from time to time and are often over different things.
Sadly IMO this poor pilot has got caught up in the politics.
I will point out that I have only given a cursory description of said dispute.

France

172driver wrote:

What you – and obviously the court – do is pure conjecture. I would expect a court of law to stick to facts and to the law. I know that’s asking a bit much in some countries (Italy being quite notorious in this regard), but that’s how it should be.

Yes. My argumentation here was basically following the court, that is trying to understand and comment how the court reasoned. Personally I have no more evidence of any of this than what was reported about the court proceedings. At least the allegations that there was no radio coms have been repeatedly stated though and therefore I believe that to be assured.

As for the transponder signal, I mentioned that out of a different context. It has been stated many times in this forum and elsewhere that people switch off their transponders in areas where airspace violations are sanctioned harshly, see the UK thread, also it is known that some groups do this around complex airspace near ZRH. Whether the Jodel had a working transponder or not and wheather it was on I don’t know. If it did however, the question will be if the helicopter had a device to detect it (power flarm would suffice) and why that did not lead to deconflictation.

And to make one thing clear: I am NOT for criminalisation, neither am I of the opinion that this verdict helps anyone. I am trying to understand why the verdict was reached and the reasoning behind it. IMHO, that pilot was punished very severely by the very accident, his massive injuries and so on, to throw him behind bars for a long time is obviously a statement by the court in the tradition of “pour encourager les autres”. However, personally due to the stated circumstances, I find the criminal aspect of this case vs. eg.e the Mooney vs glider case different. First of all everyone survived, 2ndly both crews fully cooperated with the investigation only to find that they were punished for doing so in the end and thirdly, the way the report was written would have suggested a different outcome but for one kill all sentence in the conclusion: – lack of airspace surveillance – which was quite remarkable contradiction to the gist of the report.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

dublinpilot wrote:

geologists were convicted for failing to predict an earthquake.

Yes, but the verdict was eventually overturned by an appeals court. Wikipedia.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Reading about it that is a possibility but it could be for any other reason too. It didn’t work

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Hence my earlier Q is whether any of the deceased had high level political connections, or something like that. The further south one goes in Europe, the more that becomes a factor.

Anyone remember the speedboat accident on the Thames? The girl killed had family in the judiciary. I didnt understand why the guy did a runner until I heard this. Its not just southern Europe.

Not only that; you will get asset-stripped. Your family home gone, etc. Normal aviation liability insurance should cover that, up to its limit, but maybe not if you are a convicted criminal who was negligent – see this. I don’t know if Italy has a similar provision of “gross negligence”.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Hasn’t Italy a history of strange judgement?

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember one where geologists were convicted for failing to predict an earthquake. I have a vague recollection of another one where ATC (or was the the met service?) were convicted in equally questionable circumstances.

Having said that, I imagine a lot of pilots in Italy don’t feel so comfortable after this ruling. Nobody goes out expecting t have a mid-air accident. But the thought that, if you survive it, you might end up spending a long time in jail, isn’t pleasant!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

I think this all a bit over the top.

Car analogy: if two cars collide, one driver survives, and the prosecution believes that both drivers were careless. The surviving driver will be put on trial. The dead one obviously won’t.

The problem here [as in the Mooney-hits-glider case] is more the criminalisation of accidents which are, given the fallibility of “see and avoid”, really caused by the archaic system than by any of the unfortunate participants.

Biggin Hill

Mooney_Driver wrote:

It will be interesting to see if the ADSB mandate in the US will have an impact on airborne collisions.

It has. It already saved me from one prob90 and another one 100%.

As for this accident: agree with @gallois above. What you – and obviously the court – do is pure conjecture. I would expect a court of law to stick to facts and to the law. I know that’s asking a bit much in some countries (Italy being quite notorious in this regard), but that’s how it should be.

@Mooney_Driver you keep repeating that the Jodel pilot was not giving position reports (true) but you go on to say that he didn’t because he was trying to hide that he was doing something illegal. Do you have evidence for this very serious accusation?
Secondly, you also accuse the Jodel pilot of either having no surveillance device eg mode C or not using it. Do you also have evidence to back up this accusation?

France
233 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top