Leonardo AW169 crash near Humberside Airport, United Kingdom

During aircraft pre-start procedures, one of the passengers reported that he had seen something fall from the aircraft. The ground crew subsequently reported that the hoist hook had detached from the hoist cable and fallen to the ground. Although there were no functional, mechanical or electrical problems found with the hoist system, it was possible that procedural drift may have resulted in inadvertent activation of the hoist cut system, severing the hoist cable. The Operator has stressed to their crews the importance of following the organisation’s published aircraft start checklists. They have also amended their checklist to include a more detailed hoist start up sequence which contains the warnings from the aircraft’s Rotorcraft Flight Manual external hoist system supplement. AW169, G-UNIB 10-23