On 29 November 2006, an Australian Army Black Hawk helicopter,
A25-221, crashed during a training flight. The helicopter was
attempting to land on HMAS Kanimbla located in international waters
off Fiji. Onboard the helicopter were 10 army personnel - four
aircrew and six soldiers. Of those onboard, eight survived and two
were fatally injured.
The helicopter sank in deep water and the flight data recorder
(FDR) was recovered in March 2007 after a salvage operation. The
Australian Department of Defence was responsible for investigating
this accident and appointed a Board of Inquiry. The Department of
Defence requested ATSB assistance in the recovery of data from the
FDR. The Executive Director of the ATSB approved the request. To
protect the information supplied by the ATSB to Defence and
investigation work undertaken to assist Defence, the ATSB initiated
an investigation under the Transport Safety Investigation Act
2003.
The FDR was received at the ATSB laboratories in Canberra on 27
March 2007 and it was disassembled the same day.
The FDR details were:
| Manufacturer: | L3 Communications |
|---|---|
| Part Number: | S903-2000-01 |
| Serial Number: | 00477 |
The solid-state memory was successfully downloaded and a copy of
the data file was provided to a representative from the Directorate
of Defence Aviation and Air Force Safety (DDAAFS). No analysis of
the data was undertaken by the ATSB.
All the disassembled FDR components were returned to a DDAAFS
representative on 12 April 2007.
Information publicly released by the Board of Inquiry is
available on the Department of Defence website: http://www.defence.gov.au.