Copter pilot tells how instinct saved the day

Just don't call me a hero, says veteran aviator

Niall Fraser
Jul 11, 2010

Helicopter pilot Richard Moffatt is no fan of what he calls the "H" word, but few would argue
that he is a bona fide hero. If it hadn't been for his lightning-sharp reactions, years of training and
wealth of flying experience, Hong Kong could have been mourning one of its worst-ever air
disasters.

The self-effacing Moffatt was at the controls of a Macau-bound AgustaWestland AW139

helicopter with 13 passengers and crew on board when it suffered a massive failure in its tail
seconds after take-off from the Shun Tak Centre helipad in Sheung Wan last Saturday morning.
At that moment, father-of-three Moffat, 45, his Macanese first officer, Fernando Sun Keng-pong,
and the men and women passengers heading for a relaxing weekend in Asia's gaming capital
were plunged into a nightmare scenario.
The English and naturalised Australian pilot from Sky Shuttle has revealed how, after what is
acknowledged as a brilliant piece of flying to get the helicopter safely onto the water, he dived
into Victoria Harbour twice from the stricken aircraft to help distressed passengers cast adrift in
the choppy swell of one of the world's busiest waterways. He has also told how, a week after the
ordeal, he awakes in the middle of the night, replaying the incident in his head and wondering:
"Could I have done more?''
Amazingly, just five days after what could easily have been a tragedy, Moffatt was back in the
pilot's seat. It would have been sooner, was it not for the fact that his licence remains at the
bottom of the harbour.
"I got my [new] pilot's licence on Thursday lunchtime and immediately went to the heliport and
put myself on a flight," he said. "It was surprisingly fine. I didn't know how I was going to react
once I sat in the aircraft, but I got in with a training captain and it was okay. If anything, this
incident has increased my confidence in this aircraft and in myself. I wanted to do a flight as
quickly as I could, before I could change my mind. It was the same for Fernando, he just got his
licence back on Friday and got straight back in."
However, listening to a man who said he wanted to be a pilot from the tender age of four recount
the dramatic circumstances of his first real-life in-flight emergency, it was easy to understand if
he never wanted to see the inside of a helicopter again.
Moffatt recalled how, despite the speed and severity of the situation, his training took over.
"We took off towards Stonecutters Island into the wind. It was an absolutely standard departure,"
he said. "But as we were passing about 300 feet, literally five seconds after we completed the
take-off checks, we heard a big bang at the rear of the aircraft. The whole airframe started to
swerve to the right and there was a very severe vibration. The vibration was most notable through
the pedals which control the yaw (swerve) of the aircraft, so I diagnosed there was a problem
with the tail rotor. It was fairly clear to me that we had a tail rotor failure.
"The only way to resolve that was to enter into auto-rotation. This basically means taking all
power off the main rotors which takes the torque out of the system. I then asked Fernando to
switch the engines to `Off' and we auto-rotated to within about 100 feet of the water."
The veteran pilot, who has 18 years of offshore flying experience in the United States, Thailand,
Myanmar and West Africa, compared the descent of 10 to 15 seconds towards the water as "like a
sycamore leaf falling from a tree". Quite a metaphor, especially as he was talking about hundreds
of tonnes of helicopter falling out of the sky at 1,500 to 2,000 feet a minute.
"At about 30 to 50 feet, I levelled the aircraft and that cushioned us onto the water," he said,
before adding with heavy understatement: "It was largely an uneventful landing - apart from the
fact that it was on water. It was a one-way ticket down but my training just clicked in. From the
start of the event until we hit the water, I had no idea how the passengers were reacting. Both
myself and Fernando were kind of busy!"
Neither did the pair have time to reflect on the highly skilled yet instinctive emergency landing -
behind them were 13 terrified people in a chaotic cabin taking in water. "As soon as we hit the
water, the floats activated automatically and our job was to get everyone out. The passengers
were surprisingly well behaved. They took my directions. It maybe took 10 to 15 seconds from
the event happening to us touching the water. I don't think there was time for panic."
Moffatt said most of the passengers got out with their life jackets on, but in the confusion some
left the helicopter without. "There was one passenger who went out with his friend and didn't
have a life jacket, so I went into the water to make sure he was okay."
The plucky pilot then swam back to the chopper to help two people who could not find life
jackets. "They were still there under the seats, but at that point there was some confusion so I
persuaded both of them to leave the aircraft with seat cushions, which are designed as buoyancy
aids."
Prior to that he had gone to the aid of a distressed woman in her mid-20s who had a life jacket
round her neck but had not tied it on. "While all this happened Fernando was right beside the
aircraft, he was doing a wonderful job. English wasn't the first language of the majority of the
passengers, so he was giving instructions in Cantonese and Mandarin."
By the time the pilots got the last two passengers into the water, three fishing boats were already
there and had picked up some of them.
"Police launches were on the scene very quickly and they did the headcount. Once I was certain
we had the 13 people out of the water, I was able to relax a little," Moffatt said.
"It wasn't until Fernando and I were on the ferry back to Macau a few hours later that evening
and there was no one else around that what had happened hit home.
"There was the realisation of what could have happened and there was also self-doubt - did I do
the right thing? Did I do the best I could? Was there something else I could have done to not have
gone into the water?
"You read about pilots in emergency situations and you think, `If that had been me, would I have
been able to pull that off?' It's nice to know that 18 years of flying have paid off.
"I don't want to sound like some sort of super-pilot because I am not; it is instinct, the training is
there to make this reaction second nature. I just hope this is a once-in-a-career event.