![]() The damaged crane attached to St George Wharf Tower as seen on the day of the crash | |
Accident | |
---|---|
Date | 16 January 2013 |
Summary | Collision with obstacle in poor visibility |
Site | Vauxhall, London, England 51°28′57″N0°7′38.5″W / 51.48250°N 0.127361°W |
Total fatalities | 2 |
Total injuries | 12 |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Agusta A109E |
Operator | RotorMotion |
ICAO flight No. | RKT2 |
Call sign | ROCKET 2 |
Registration | G-CRST |
Flight origin | Redhill Aerodrome, Surrey, England |
Destination | Elstree Airfield, Hertfordshire, England |
Occupants | 1 |
Crew | 1 |
Fatalities | 1 |
Survivors | 0 |
Ground casualties | |
Ground fatalities | 1 |
Ground injuries | 12 |
On 16 January 2013, an Agusta A109 helicopter crashed in Vauxhall, London, [1] after it collided with the jib of a construction crane attached to St George Wharf Tower. Two people died in the incident: [2] the pilot, Pete Barnes, [1] 50, and a pedestrian, Matthew Wood, 39, from Sutton in south London. [2] [3] Five people were taken to hospital and seven more were treated at the scene. [2]
The pilot had diverted because of poor visibility. The official report concluded he was probably unaware how close the tower was, and that the deaths were accidental.
Barnes was an experienced helicopter pilot, flying commercially for many years – including having experience with the Great North Air Ambulance Service. [4]
Barnes had been en route from Redhill Aerodrome to Elstree Airfield to collect a passenger, [5] businessman Richard Caring, [6] and then fly onwards to Yorkshire. [5] Before the pilot had taken off, Caring called him twice on his mobile phone to suggest either delaying or cancelling the flight. [5] [6] However, Barnes chose to proceed with the flight across London, in low cloud and freezing temperatures. After being unable to land at Elstree at 07:46, whilst returning south to Redhill, Barnes had asked Air Traffic Control at 07:56 for a change of route and permission to land at the London Heliport in Battersea. [5] [6]
At 07:59 GMT, the helicopter collided with the jib of a construction crane attached to St George Wharf Tower in Vauxhall. The existence of the crane was subject to a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), [Note 1] but the investigators were unable to ascertain whether or not the pilot was aware of the NOTAM. Although the pilot would have seen the building when he previously flew in to Battersea, it was not on the database of the GPS system in use in the helicopter, as that had not been updated since May 2012. [7] The impact sent the helicopter plunging towards the ground, where it caught fire, killing the pilot and pedestrian Matthew Wood. [2] [3]
The BBC reported that the crash happened "in heavy mist". [2] The location of the incident was near Vauxhall bus station, where eyewitnesses reported seeing a "ball of flame". [8] [9] An eyewitness told the BBC that he had heard a "very unusual buzzing sound" just after 08:00. [10]
The helicopter involved was an Agusta A109E with the registration G-CRST. [11] At the time of the accident, it had flown for 2,304.5 hours. [7] The helicopter was owned by Castle Air of Cornwall and leased to RotorMotion of Redhill, Surrey. [1] [2]
The main wreckage landed in Wandsworth Road, in front of the Wendle Court building. [2] Five people were taken to hospital and seven more were treated at the scene. [2]
The London Fire Brigade said that they had rescued one person from a burning car and that two office buildings, five cars and two motorbikes were damaged as the helicopter crashed to the ground. [12] The scene of the wreckage itself was attended by 88 fire brigade personnel who extinguished the blaze within 20 minutes, while a further 57 worked to make the damaged crane safe and to help evacuate residents from the tower. [12]
The London Heliport contacted the Royal National Lifeboat Institution after having been unable to make contact with the helicopter. An inshore rescue boat from Tower Lifeboat Station was scrambled, as well as the London Heliport's own fire and rescue service after reports of people in the water, but was later recalled. [13] A fireboat also conducted a precautionary search of the river. [12]
Vauxhall station was closed in the aftermath of the incident but reopened the following day. Road users were still advised to avoid the area. [14] ITV News reported that First Capital Connect warned passengers against travelling in the area, though the station was at the time actually served by South West Trains and London Underground. [15]
Vauxhall bus station took five days to fully reopen. [16] Nine Elms Lane remained closed so that a Terex TC 2800-1 lattice boom truck crane (one of the biggest mobile cranes in the country), brought down from Leyland, Lancashire, could be used to remove the jib of the damaged Terex CTL 180 crane. [17] The work was completed by 11 February, with all roads reopened.
Kate Hoey, the Labour Member of Parliament for the Vauxhall constituency, told the BBC that, in her opinion, there should be an "inquiry into the increasing numbers of helicopters flying around London". In 1991, she had tabled a Ten Minute Rule Bill to tighten the rules on helicopter and heliport legislation, [18] although the bill was not successful in becoming law.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, announced a review of the regulations concerning flying in central London and the safety of tall buildings. [19] [ needs update ]
David Cameron said, on the day of the accident, that there would be a review of the rules governing helicopter flights over central London. [20] [ needs update ]
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB), the body responsible for air accident investigation in the UK, announced an inquiry into the incident. The Civil Aviation Authority announced that the crash was the first fatal helicopter crash in central London since records began in 1976. [20] [21]
A preliminary report published by the AAIB on 23 January [5] indicated that Caring, the client Barnes was to collect, had expressed concerns about the weather and twice suggested he delay take-off. [5] [6] But Barnes stated that he had already started his engine, and chose to proceed with the flight across London in weather later described by the Met Office as prone to widespread low cloud, poor visibility and patches of freezing fog. [5] [6] After being unable to land at Elstree at 07:46, Barnes decided to return to Redhill. After being put under radar control, having entered the London CTR at 07:55, [5] [6] at 07:56 Barnes asked ATC for clearance to divert to the London Heliport. [5] [6] The ATC controller placed Barnes in a hold over the River Thames between Vauxhall Bridge and Westminster Bridge, while checking with controllers at Battersea as to whether they could accept the helicopter. [5] [6]
The report stated that at 07:59, just 15 seconds before hitting the crane, the final exchange between ATC and the helicopter, callsign Rocket 2, was: [5] [6]
After the exchange ended at 07:59:18, when the helicopter was approximately 150 metres (490 ft) south-west of Vauxhall Bridge, it immediately afterwards began to turn right. At 07:59:25, it struck the crane on the south side of the river 275 metres (902 ft) from the south-west end of Vauxhall Bridge. [5]
The AAIB report also stated that:
In March 2013, BBC London report indicated that the crash could have been prevented, based on a study written in 2005 to which "19 experts contributed, from organisations including National Air Traffic Services (NATS), the MoD, the Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit and the British Helicopter Advisory Board". A number of safety issues had been raised by the study –particularly relating to visibility, meteorology and flying in a crowded and complex urban environment –but the CAA had not yet made any changes to the air rules. However, the studies and commentary were claimed to be productive. [22]
The final report was published on 9 September 2014. The report identified two causal factors:
Ten recommendations were made. [7]
An inquest determined that the deaths of Barnes and Wood were accidental. [23]
Aberdeen International Airport is an international airport, located in the Dyce suburb of Aberdeen, Scotland, approximately 5 nautical miles northwest of Aberdeen city centre. As of 2023, 1.9 million people used the airport.
The AgustaWestland AW109, originally the Agusta A109, is a lightweight, twin-engine, eight-seat multi-purpose helicopter designed and initially produced by the Italian rotorcraft manufacturer Agusta. It was the first all-Italian helicopter to be mass-produced. Its production has been continued by Agusta's successor companies, presently Leonardo.
London Heliport, previously called Battersea Heliport and currently known officially as the EdmistonLondon Heliport for sponsorship reasons, is London's only licensed heliport. The facility, which was built by W. & C. French and opened on 23 April 1959, is located in Battersea on the south bank of the River Thames, 3 NM southwest of Westminster Bridge and between Wandsworth Bridge and Battersea Railway Bridge.
London Oxford Airport, formerly known as Kidlington Airport, is a privately owned airport located near Kidlington in Cherwell District, Oxfordshire, 6 NM northwest by north of Oxford, 62 mi (100 km) from Central London. Despite its name the airport is not included in the IATA code LON used for London airports.
On 16 July 1983 a British Airways Helicopters commercial Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, Oscar November (G-BEON), crashed in the southern Celtic Sea, in the Atlantic Ocean, while en route from Penzance to St Mary's, Isles of Scilly in poor visibility. Only six of the twenty-six people on board survived. It was Britain's worst helicopter civil aviation accident at the time.
The 2006 Morecambe Bay Helicopter Crash was a fatal air incident that occurred on 27 December 2006 at approximately 18:40 GMT, while remote platform crew were being transported from the Millom West via North Morecambe gas platforms to return them to the AP1, part of the Morecambe Field's Central Complex, situated approximately 24 miles (39 km) from the shoreline of Morecambe Bay, Lancashire, England.
St George Wharf Tower, also known as the Vauxhall Tower, is a residential skyscraper in Vauxhall, London, and part of the St George Wharf development. At 181 metres (594 ft) tall with 50 storeys, it is the 20th-tallest building in London and was the tallest residential building in the United Kingdom on its completion.
British Airways Flight 38 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, to London Heathrow Airport in London, United Kingdom, an 8,100-kilometre trip. On 17 January 2008, the Boeing 777-200ER aircraft operating the flight crashed just short of the runway while landing at Heathrow. No fatalities occurred; of the 152 people on board, 47 sustained injuries, one serious. It was the first time in the aircraft type's history that a Boeing 777 was declared a hull loss, and subsequently written off.
On 30 March 2008, a Cessna 501 Citation crashed into a house in Farnborough, London (UK), near Biggin Hill Airport, from where the aircraft had taken off a short time before. There were no survivors among the five people on board, which included former racing drivers Richard Lloyd and David Leslie.
Aeroflot Flight 821 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Aeroflot-Nord in a service agreement with Aeroflot and as its subsidiary. On 14 September 2008, the aircraft operating the flight crashed on approach to Perm International Airport at 5:10 local time (UTC+06). All 82 passengers and six crew members were killed. Among the passengers who were killed was Russian Colonel General Gennady Troshev, an adviser to the President of Russia who had been the commander of the North Caucasus Military District during the Second Chechen War. A section of the Trans-Siberian Railway was damaged by the crash. Flight 821 is the deadliest accident involving a Boeing 737-500, surpassing the 1993 crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 733, and was the second-deadliest aviation accident in 2008, behind Spanair Flight 5022.
Just before 2:00 pm on 1 April 2009, Bond Offshore Helicopters Flight 85N crashed 11 nautical miles (20 km) north-east of Peterhead, Scotland in the North Sea while returning from a BP oil platform in the Miller oilfield, 240 km (150 mi) north-east of Peterhead. The crash killed all sixteen people aboard. The flight was operated using a Eurocopter AS332L2 Super Puma Mk 2 belonging to Bond Offshore Helicopters. The cause of the crash was main rotor separation following a catastrophic gearbox failure.
On August 8, 2009, at 11:53 a.m. (15:53 UTC), nine people died when a tour helicopter and a small private airplane collided over the Hudson River near Frank Sinatra Park in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States. The aircraft were in an area known as the "Hudson River VFR Corridor", which extends from the surface of the river to altitudes of 800 to 1,500 ft at various locations along the Hudson River in the immediate area of New York City. Within this corridor, aircraft operate under visual flight rules (VFR), under which the responsibility to see and avoid other air traffic rests with the individual pilots rather than with the air traffic controller (ATC).
The AgustaWestland AW169 is a twin-engine, 10-seat, 4.8t helicopter developed and manufactured by the helicopter division of Leonardo. It was designed to share similarities with the larger AgustaWestland AW139 and AgustaWestland AW189.
Peter Barnes was a British commercial helicopter pilot. He was killed on 16 January 2013 when the AgustaWestland AW109 helicopter he was flying collided with a construction crane in central London.
On 23 August 2013, a Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma helicopter belonging to CHC Scotia crashed into the sea 2 nautical miles from Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands, Scotland, while en route from the Borgsten Dolphin drilling rig. The accident killed four passengers; twelve other passengers and two crew were rescued with injuries. A further passenger killed himself in 2017 as a result of PTSD caused by the crash. An investigation by the UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch concluded in 2016 that the accident was primarily caused by pilot error in failing to monitor instruments during approach. The public inquiry concluded in October 2020 that the crash was primarily caused by pilot error.
On 29 November 2013, a police helicopter operated by Bond Air Services for Police Scotland crashed into The Clutha, a pub in central Glasgow, killing all three crew on board and seven patrons of the pub. Thirty-one more people in the pub were injured.
On 13 March 2014, an AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter of Haughey Air crashed shortly after taking off at night in fog from Gillingham, Norfolk, United Kingdom, killing all four people on board. Among the victims was Edward Haughey, Baron Ballyedmond.
On 27 October 2018, a Leonardo AW169 helicopter crashed shortly after take-off from Leicester City's King Power Stadium in Leicester, England, while on route to Luton Airport. All people on board—the pilot and four passengers, including club owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha—were killed in the crash. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch attributed the crash to a loss of yaw control owing to a failure of the tail rotor control linkage.
The Vauxhall one way system has now reopened following last week's helicopter crash.