The investigations of the Greek authorities regarding the accident in Spata where the 22-year-old British Jack Fenton was dismembered by the propeller of the Superior Bell 407 helicopter are continuing. Today, AAA brings 5+1 facts that may shed some light on the case.
1) Superior Air is, as mentioned in an earlier AAA report, the first Greek airtaxi company to implement the Safety Briefing Video. That is, informing the passengers of the aircraft via video in terms of access, safety and the information they need to know.
The Safety Briefing Video, is implemented throughout the fleet of Superior Air -including, of course the Bell 407. The video is not only sent to the passenger, but is also accessible through a QR Code located in conspicuous places in the cabin. The SBV for this particular Superior helicopter is this:
This means that the passengers of the particular helicopter, in addition to the video they had received on their mobile phone with the safety instructions, also had them by “scanning” the QR code which is in a conspicuous place (and) on the “arm” of the helicopter their seat.
2) There is a question of whether a passenger can move to and from the helicopter while it is in operation. The safety rules say you shouldn’t, but the detail is that the company, in its manual, states that trained ground staff can pick up passengers and take them to a safe place. This is a practice implemented by several companies around the world, under the inviolable condition that trained personnel accompany passengers.
3)There is a number of credible witnesses, i.e. pilots, passengers and ground staff, who insist that the correct manual procedure was followed in egressing the particular passengers from the helicopter.
The president of the Accident Investigation and Flight Safety Committee, Ioannis Kondylis, claimed that the 22-year-old was talking on his mobile phone and quickly moved towards the helicopter.
4)There is evidence that, for an unknown reason, the victim began running towards the helicopter “running away” from the personnel and disobeyed admonitions/orders to return and stay away from the helicopter. The first conclusions of the Accident Investigation and Flight Safety Committee are based on them. It remains unknown if there is audio-visual footage from cameras at the site.
5) On the other hand, there is the testimony of the specific passengers who accompanied the unfortunate young man who was dismembered and which denies that the procedure was followed. “No instructions were given on exit and no one escorted us to the lounge. All they did was open the doors for us.”
“We disembarked by ourselves and no one stopped Jack from going to the back of the helicopter. “None of us made it to the living room before the accident,” Jack Stanton Gleaves, a friend of Fenton’s who was with him at the fatal moment, said characteristically.
+1) The Greek authorities’ investigations into the circumstances of the accident are continuing. An urgent preliminary examination, ordered by the Athens Prosecutor’s Office regarding the causes of the tragic accident, is underway.
The results of the toxicological tests that have been carried out on the victim are awaited, while the data that will emerge from the recovery of the data from the 22-year-old’s mobile phone are awaited, so that it becomes known who he was communicating with and what led him to head behind the helicopter.
