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

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

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, Switzerland

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.

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