A 62-year-old pilot who managed to crash-land a helicopter in a field without injuring himself and his passenger was hailed for his skilful flying in an air accident report published yesterday.
Equipment failure at over 900 feet above Fethard, Co Tipperary, in June, 2005 left the pilot unable to steer the helicopter using his foot pedals.
The incident happened when a friend of the pilot was filming the town with a new video camera.
"The helicopter had completed half the circumference of the town when both pilot and passenger heard a bang from the tail," according to the report from accident investigator John Hughes. "There was a quarry below and some houses followed by four fields, some containing boulders and some cattle."
The pilot managed to reach the nearest suitable field half a mile away and the heavy forced landing broke one of the shock absorbers. To reach the field the pilot had to cross an ESB cable and a hedge.
"The pilot is to be complimented for landing the stricken helicopter, under difficult circumstances, without injury to either himself or his passenger," Mr Hughes said.
The inspector found the failure of the spar was the result of "fatigue cracking".
After a spar failed on a helicopter in 1972, thicker tubing was used but there was another accident in 1987. That resulted in a Federal Aviation Authority directive requiring the spar to be examined every 100 hours.
Mr Hughes said that at the rate at which the helicopter was being flown, it was not due an inspection for at least two years.
The helicopter had only flown for an hour and a half since an inspection of its spar and renewal of its certificate of airworthiness in March 2005.