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Helicopter Crash in a Volcano
In the
Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii
November 21st, 1992
Pushing the Envelope...
Craig Hosking is a maverick. He was the youngest licensed helicopter
pilot ever, as he received his rotary wing license on the very day of his
sixteenth birthday, and parlayed his dreams of flight into a highly successful
career flying aerial work for television series, and feature films alike.
So when the call came one day from Paramount Studios to take two freelance
cameramen to shoot film of volcano eruptions for a mystery movie called
"Sliver," which was scheduled to be released the following summer, he thought
little of it.
Paramount also hired Mike Benson, a freelance cinematographer, and
Christopher Duddy, a freelance camera technician, to film the volcano.
The Bell 206B-III helicopter,
tail number N789N, was equipped with 2 cameras and was doing filming runs of a
volcano vent crater and its associated smoke plume for the motion picture.
There is no active lava flow in the Pu'u O'o vent of the Kilauea Volcano, but a
pool of lava glows in a 120-foot deep pit on one side of the crater floor.
The Sound of Trouble...
According to Hosking,
on the
third pass over the crater, he noticed the main rotor output decreasing, and saw the
rotor caution light illuminate.
"As I was flying
that fateful pass, just about two seconds before arriving over the center of the
crater, we experienced a governor linkage failure,"
Quickly, he lowered the collective,
but inadvertently entered
the volcano smoke and steam cloud. "We've got a problem," Hosking announced to
the cameramen, who were both did not hear the low rotor warning tone,
and perceived no change in engine sound during the descent.
After turning, Hosking exited the cloud and autorotated
the helicopter down to the crater's bottom.
"During the autorotation, I could've gone over to the outside of the crater, but
it was so steep that it would've been a fatal rollover." The main rotor struck the shear rock wall
during the flare and separated from the helicopter.
In hindsight, Hosking recalls: "You don't have time
for emotion," he said. "You have ten seconds. Here's how it goes: 'Okay, we have
a problem. I have to get the RPMs up. Now we're descending. We can't land
outside. We have to land inside. That's not a good place to go, but it's our
only choice. I see a flat spot, but I have get by those rocks, and I have to get
away from the hot lava. RPMS are good. Speed is good. Here comes the ground.'
And you're down."
The helicopter's crash site was inside the volcano,
nearly 150 feet below the rim.
Hell on Earth...
The three filmmakers spent hours choking on poisonous
gas from the volcano before the two cameramen decided to try to climb out by
themselves, after it became apparent that rescue wasn't imminent.
But after Duddy and Benson became trapped on a high
ridge, Hosking managed to radio for help by jury-rigging the radio to a spare
battery, and a local pilot made a heroic flight into the volcano's core, and
quickly rescued Hosking.
It took nearly two days and an improvised rescue
effort organized by the film company to retrieve Duddy and Benson from their
plight.
One of the cameraman, Christopher Duddy, had reached the lip of the
volcano at 2:30 P.M. on Sunday, 27 hours after the crash.
When It Rains...
But efforts to rescue the other cameraman, Michael Benson, from a
Kilauea Volcano crater in the Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park had been delayed by heavy smoke, rain and fog.
Benson said he
imagined he saw Pele, the
volcano goddess of legend,
looking back at him from across
the crater. "I told her that she was not
going to take me," Mr. Benson
said in an interview with the
New York Times after rescue. "I actually got up and
screamed that at her."
A break in the weather let a helicopter,
piloted by Tom Hauptman, fly
into the crater and drop a basket attached to a 150-foot
rope, according to Donna Cuttone, a ranger at the park. Benson was pulled out
of the vent at 10:45 Monday morning, and taken to a hospital in Hilo,
she said.
Mike Benson was stuck about 60 feet below the rim of
the 600-foot-high crater, said Richard Rasp, a spokesman
for the park. According to Rasp, rescuers at the edge of the rim had been
unable to see Benson because of the fumes and steam
rising from the volcano.
Taking Care of Business...
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The NTSB determined the
probable cause of the accident was,
"the pilot's intentional flight in and near a volcanic gas cloud which induced a
partial loss of engine power due to a lack of combustible oxygen in the
atmosphere."
Paramount Studios
publicly praised Hosking for "a remarkable job in
landing the craft so all three were able to walk away
with cuts and bruises."
The story of this crash was featured in an episode of the Discovery Channel
television series "I Shouldn't Be Alive".
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Ironically, the volcano scenes ended up being cut from the final
release of the production of Sliver.
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