OP

Quoted from tscottn:

Hi Everyone.
This is the OP of this thread. First I would like to thank everyone for reading and commenting. I have been reading along with all of you, however it’s unfortunate I am not a verified pinsider so once the tread went “hot” I couldn’t reply to anyone’s comments.
I think at this point there is not much left to say anyway with regards to what happened, as it has mostly been covered via the media, NTSB/FAA etc. However I would like to make a few points based on reading all the comments above...
First I would like to apologize if I offended anyone with my rant in the first post. It wasn’t my intention at all. I know there are many people here who are passionate about things so if I ruffled any feathers please know it was not intentional. Also I would like to say that I am not an arrogant person and I do not pretend to know everything about aviation and I don’t want to come off as that type. During my time typing the original post, I realize now that I used a few key phrases that made me come off as arrogant. For example, I should have never used the term, “I know for a fact”. Please know that while I was typing my original post there was a lot of emotion running through my mind. Sometimes in the moment we don’t always use the best choice of words for the message we want to convey.
One other thing, with regards to title of my post, some have pointed out that by using the title “I want to set the record straight” I needed to refute another account of what happened. This was obviously a poor choice for a title and after I posted I made numerous attempts to change the tittle to something that would convey my thoughts better, however once the tread went “ hot” as previously mentioned im not sure that this was an option so I just figured I would live with it as is. So once again I apologize for the poor choice of a title.
Now that that’s all out of the way, I want to say that the reason I was so upset when this happened is because it harkens back to five years ago when I lost my crew (that I just worked with a few days before) to the exact same type of accident; CFIT with rolling left turn into the side of a mountain. These were my friends, people that I laughed and worked with and saw outside of work for a beer or two. To know that these people were helpless victims to bad choices made by the very person who was there to keep them safe is infuriating to me. It hurts at the core. And to know that all those people on Koby’s helicopter were victims of the same bad choices just really makes it even worse.
In the helicopter industry many companies train for IIMC (Inadvertent Instrument meteorological Conditions) all the time. I can say that when a perfectly good helicopter (such as the 76b) turns and rolls into terrain while in the “soup” low level clod, fog etc. It is a good indication that the pilot got disoriented during flight. There is a lot that goes into making a good pilot an IFR pilot. It is not an easy skill to learn and can quickly diminish if not used regularly. At my company we are always training for IFR and IIMC. This is because our certificate with the FAA allows for us to fly IFR. Unfortunately this was not the case for the company that owned the helicopter in question. They were a part 135 VFR only certificate. This means that they could not legally fly IFR however they could still train for IIMC. However believing what your instruments are telling you over what your body is telling you is not an easy thing to overcome for a VFR guy.
As pilots, we are put in this position because we are trusted to make safe competent decisions that are always in the best interest of the crew, passengers, etc. Barring any unforeseen mechanical issues, I think we will all find out that this was just a series of bad choices that easily could have been avoided. Unfortunately, this will not be the last time a pilot flying VFR will take off in marginal weather, fly into IIMC conditions and kill him/her and the passengers on board. This part I know to be true, I wish I could change this however I have seen it one to many times over and over in the industry.
Ok I think I finally beat the dead horse even further than I thought I could. Thanks for reading.