Off Wikipedia:-

After the crash, an investigative team from the UK Department for Transport Air Accidents Investigation Branch attended the scene in co-operation with Strathcyde Police. The wreckage of the helicopter was removed to Farnborough for further forensic investigation. Pilots operate under strict regulations, and are expected in the case of helicopters under CAA rules to undertake a competency test every year, and renew their licenses every five years - to not do so is illegal. It later emerged that McRae had not undertaken a competency check as required in March 2006, and that effectively his license had expired in February 2005. A CAA spokesman commented "The investigators must determine why he (McRae) hasn’t kept up to date with his documentation. There is no suggestion that Mr McRae was not a competent pilot.”[38]

 

wikipedia is a internet built encyclopedia, anyone can add to it meaning that the info added can be out of date, incorrect or down right lies.

 

i did hear about something like that just after the crash but never found out if something happened after.

 

Someone else has pointed out this may have come from The Sun...

So, I think it may be crap, hope so.

I was a BIG fan so, I am just dwelling at the mo. One year on next Monday...

 

in all honesty a guy like him lived life on the edge in one of the most dangerous sports in the world!!
flying i whirlybird would have been a piece of P*** for him!

 

so it must have been true then lol


NOT!

 

Lets hope not
Cheers
Colin

 

Has the report been published yet. I was told he went low and clipped trees. Don't know if it's true or not.

 

No, the accident report hasn't been published yet. The report on Dave Richards' accident the day after was published this morning.

Air Accidents Investigation: Eurocopter EC135 T2, G-IWRC

 

I had also heard this about Colin not being upto date with his licence/paperwork , true or not what has happened has happened.

I bet there are plenty of people out there with incorrect address's on their driving licence due to house moves, MOT out of date ect.... It doesnt mean you can no longer drive the car. Just oversights in ones busy lifestyle today.

 

Even if it is true, then it doesnt have any real bearing, does it? That CM was a competent pilot isnt in question, only whether he had kept up to date with a number of periodic 'rubber stamps'.

 

Quite true. I don't think a 'rubber stamp' would have saved him in this case. I understand that the report should be out before Christmas.

 

He might also have had a commercial licence alongside his PPL one, meaning he could have let the commercial one slip but still been legal to fly it... only takes a journo to not check ALL of the facts to suddenly think he had no licence at all.

Have no idea though one way or the other, was just one of the things explained to me by a heli pilot not long after the accident had happened.

 

who cares what it said legally on documents, if you have your licence taken away you can still drive a car, just not legally.


Do not believe everything you see on the internet. Think how much bollcoks is on this forum

 

Don't neg the OP for this though guys ........ He is only posting what he has found.

Just have a read and draw your own conclusions, as said Journo's will say what they will to sell their 'stories'.

 

ohh how this would have been different, if it was a bloke in a car who never had his licence renewed.

SN at its finest.

everybody would have been slating him/her and coming out with the "you should not have been driving bollocks"

even though the person could probably drive fine, just never renewed the licence (maybe after DUI?)

 

The report is interesting:

Dave Richards crash landed a perfectly serviceable aircraft having misread his tachos following a brief interruption in the auto-pilot function - he mistakenly thought he had had total twin engine failure

Now in autogiro where you have to maintain a fast forward speed as you descend to keep the rotors moving at sufficient speed so you do not drop like a stone, he then got the "flare" [which is done to kill forward speed at a crucial height that gets you safely on the ground in one piece] wrong so the tail hit the ground first both hard and fast and snapped before the chopper rolled over to the right with the engines still powering the rotors which then smashed to pieces.

In fairness to him, the accident investigators highlight Colin's death the previous day, the fact that Mrs Richards was in the chopper with him and his previous experience on single-engined choppers for Dave's decision to deck the aircraft ASAP. Unfortunately, as is known to happen in such circumstances, he effectively went deaf during the 45 seconds this took so he missed a number of klaxons and other warnings hat might have helped him understand his engines were fine and the aircraft was not in danger.

In short, he over-reacted but perhaps not surprisingly in the circumstances prevailing at that time and, after evacuating himself and his wife safely, he was brave enough to go back into the aircraft immediately after the crash to shut the engines down.