Inquiry: McRae Flying Too Low And Too Fast

[janvanvurpa]

I'm sure the accident investigators know what happened, especially with the video evidence they had. Great mysteries have been solved only using voice and data recordings. Now they even had a video and the wreckage and impact damage was visible, and not for example in deep sea. Accident investigators are not the police nor the tribunal. They never search guilty ones - they search reasons why something happened. It could have been mechanical failure. In this case it was pilot error.

Jooooo typical Finnish understatement.
There were also at the time plenty of witnesses.
The thing is it is not like Colin was unaware that he had crashed CARS---the thing he had ages more experience driving-----plenty of times. And he had of course seen what piles of scrap rediculously strong rally cars turn into with just a little error.

And anybody who has ever just looked at helicopters knows how lightly built, and how simply exposed you----and any unfortunate passengers are.
It doesn't take much intelligence or imagination to think about the consequences of a major blunder in a helicopter...

If he had killed only himself in a hot-dogging accident I would not criticize, I have had several personal and family friends die in light aircraft accidents.
But to kill his son and another boy just showing off so much he lost control.....I really had no words then and no words now strong enough.


(For a kid 5 or 6 or 8 just flying in a light plane is exciting enough---I can recall when I did at that age---BIG EYES!!!!)

[N.O.T]

If he was a rich guy with a different name everybody would wish him good riddance to hell for leading 2 minors and an adult to a horrible death...

and rightly so...

I feel sorry that such a legend of our sport had such a personality.

[Iskald]

If he was a rich guy with a different name everybody would wish him good riddance to hell for leading 2 minors and an adult to a horrible death...

and rightly so...

I feel sorry that such a legend of our sport had such a personality.

The man is dead. He can`t defend himself. And you are stamping on his grave.

This thread is in my opinion absolutely pointless!

[N.O.T]

This thread is in my opinion absolutely pointless!

i agree with that...

[Mark]

Yes he's dead, but that doesn't mean lessons should not be learned. Flying without a licence is simply unacceptable, but the price he and his family paid for it was far too high.

[tfp]

Former rally world champion Colin McRae MBE crashed his helicopter because he was flying too low and too fast in the wrong place, a Fatal Accident Inquiry has found.The inquiry found 39-year-old McRae had undertaken the flight that killed him and three others without a valid pilot’s licence.

McRae crashed his helicopter on 15 September 2007 in a wooded area, Mouse Valley, near to his home in Lanark. He died along with his son Johnny, aged five, and two family friends: six year-old Ben Porcelli and Graeme Duncan, who was 37.

The FAI has found that McRae lost control of his helicopter after entering Mouse Valley when there were no “operational or logistical reasons” to do so.

The helicopter deviated from its path and collided with trees. McRae wasn’t able to recover control of the aircraft because he was flying too fast and too low.

Sheriff Nikola Stewart concluded:“For a private pilot such as Mr McRae, lacking the necessary training, experience or requirement to do so, embarking upon such demanding, low level flying in such difficult terrain, was imprudent, unreasonable and contrary to the principles of good airmanship.”

The FAI found that McRae, the youngest man ever to win the World Rally Championships drivers title with his victory for the Subaru team in 1995, didn’t hold a valid flying licence at the time of the crash and therefore should not have been flying the aircraft.

Video recordings of the flight had been taken by passenger Graeme Duncan on a video camera he used inside the helicopter.

The footage demonstrated that McRae had consistently flown the aircraft at unnecessarily low heights throughout the fatal flight.

What a load of pointless bulls**t.

What were they trying to do by releasing that? Teach him a lesson? Good luck with that one.

The man is dead. He can`t defend himself. And you are stamping on his grave.

This thread is in my opinion absolutely pointless!

You have spoken more sense in four sentances than they have in that entire speech. Thankyou

Thumbs up for Colin Mcrae

Gone but NEVER forgotten.

d--(o_O)--b

[slorydn1]

I agree that if he was not licensed to do so than he should never have been at the controls of that aircraft....period. The manner in which he is alleged to have been operating it becomes moot at that point-he never should have been operating it to start with, not at any speed or altitude.

Mark is right-we all can learn from these things-and agencies like the FAI there or NTSB here in the states are there to do just that-find out what caused a crash then report it so all of us can learn from it. So I have no problem with them releasing their findings, there are lessons to be learned from them.

All that being said everyone who is so ready to bash him forget 2 very important points.

1) He's Human-and all humans do some dumb things every once in a while. We make mistakes. Show me one who doesn't and I'll show you a Cyborg. Should he have used better judgement? Sure-you'll never get an argument from me that says other wise.

2) He's dead-he paid the ultimate price for his transgressions. There is nothing more that a court can do to him that's any worse than that. I hate the fact that he took his young son and a friend with him, they didn't deserve to die. But I hate the FACT, not the person. "Hating" on him isnt going to change anything,it's not going to bring the other victims back. So really, about the only "pointless" posts in this thread are the one's that denigrate him as a person. He was a great driver that made a stupid human mistake, and paid for it with his life. And yes, while making that mistake his actions led to the deaths of other people, which makes it most unfortunate. Had he survived the crash himself he would have been guilty of neglegent homicide-a crime that in most jurisdictions would have had a moderate prison sentence attached to it. As such he paid a much heavier price than that.

That said, I'm sure everyone has an opinion. Everyone is free to voice their opinion. I applaud almost everyone for not directly going after another poster in voicing their opinion. Go after the post, not the poster. A few have gotten close to that line, so be careful. Other than tha good job so far

[Tomi]

What a load of pointless bulls**t.

What were they trying to do by releasing that? Teach him a lesson? Good luck with that one.

Its good they released the repport, if there is other morons out there, they might think twice before they fly without licence and killing children.

[Gregor-y]

As sad as it is McRae was always a bit reckless in the cars and it shouldn't be too surprising he was reckless elsewhere. I can't say it changes any of my opinions other than to emphasize the consistency of the man.

[Barreis]

Man is dead and that's it.