The Broward Sheriff’s Office helicopter that crashed into an apartment complex on Monday should have been replaced over a decade ago, according to a consultant report.
The crash killed a Fire Rescue captain and a woman who lived in the apartment and injured four others. The pilot reported an engine failure and a fire during flight, investigators say, but it remains unclear what caused them to occur.
The 2017 consultant report, solicited by BSO and reviewed by the Broward County Commission that year, paints a harrowing picture of the aviation fleet six years ago: Workers barely able to keep up with day-to-day maintenance, aging helicopters that should have already been replaced, and a director of maintenance who didn’t know what parts were in storage or how long they had been there, even though many of the parts have shelf lives.
The helicopter that crashed Monday, a 1999 Airbus Helicopter EC-135T1, should have been replaced prior to its 12-year inspection in 2011, the 80-plus page report by Law Enforcement Aviation Consultants said.
Sheriff Gregory Tony said Tuesday that he had spoken with the county for several years about replacing his helicopters, as recently as this past June. In a June budget meeting, the Sheriff’s Office described both of the Air Rescue helicopters as “end-of-life.”
“We’ve been piecemealing parts for years to be able to maintain the flight capability,” Tony told commissioners at that meeting.
It wasn’t until after the crash, Tony said Tuesday, that he got approval from Broward County Mayor Lamar Fisher for two new helicopters.
But the county said Wednesday that Tony did not officially request those helicopters in any of his past few budget proposals.
“The only formal way of asking Broward County to fund anything in particular is through the budget process,” Michael Ruiz, the assistant county administrator, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The crash
The helicopter crashed into an apartment complex in Pompano Beach Monday morning, after the pilot reported both a left engine failure and an engine fire, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The crash killed Fire Rescue Captain Terryson Jackson, a 19-year veteran of the department, and a woman in the apartment complex, who the Sheriff’s Office has not identified.
Two crewmen, BSO paramedic Mikael “Mike” Chauguaceda, 31, and Fire Rescue pilot Daron Roche, 37, were hospitalized after the crash. They have since returned home, the Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.
Footage of the crash shows smoke and flames billowing out of the helicopter. Its tail begins to come apart, and the helicopter spirals downward into the building below.
With the tail rotor disabled, the pilot had “virtually little control whatsoever,” said J.F. Joseph, a former Marine Corps pilot and director of the Texas Department of Transportation who watched video footage of the crash.
Rotorcraft have no ability to “glide” like airplanes do when something fails “dynamically,” he added.
“I’m certain the pilot in this mishap did everything he possibly could to get control of this aircraft,” Joseph said. “When the tail rotor, when that aspect, is lost, so is a high degree of capacity to recover.”
‘The maintenance staff needs help’
All four of the Sheriff’s Office helicopters posed serious challenges in 2017, the report says, while workers struggled to perform basic maintenance duties and the department’s director of maintenance failed to keep track of parts, a serious safety concern.
The helicopter that crashed Monday should have been replaced before its 12-year inspection, which would have happened in 2011, and before BSO paid for its engine and transmission overhauls in 2016 and 2017, the report said.
“Aircraft should be replaced before reaching certain milestones, namely a second engine overhaul, usually at the 7000-hour mark, or the 12-year inspection, whichever occurs first,” the report continued. “In the case of BSO’s helicopters, three of them have already reached or exceeded these milestones.”
Those three were the helicopter that crashed Monday and the two law enforcement helicopters.
The two law enforcement helicopters were in such a bad state that they needed to be replaced immediately, the report said. One of the helicopters was disassembled and had been undergoing its 12-year inspection for three years.
The Broward County Commission voted 7-1 to approve a request from the Sheriff’s Office that asked to replace both of those helicopters in 2017, citing the report. Commissioner Michael Udine voted no.
The overhauls to the helicopter that crashed this week had extended its “useful life” until 2020, however, according to the report.
“The next optimal time to sell and replace this helicopter is anytime between 2018 and 2022,” the report continued.
BSO’s fourth helicopter, its other Air Rescue helicopter, a 2012 Airbus EC-135T2+, “has been the most problematic of the three (active) helicopters,” the report said, due to its high operating weight. The consultants recommended that BSO either sell the helicopter before 2019 or “absorb the cost” of the two engine overhauls due in 2019, in which case the helicopter could stay until 2025. It is unclear whether those engine overhauls were performed.
Those helicopters, the EC-135T1 and the EC-135T2+, made up BSO’s Air Rescue fleet until the crash Monday, when the Sheriff’s Office subsequently grounded all three of its remaining helicopters for reinspection.
They are still grounded as of Wednesday, according to Veda Coleman-Wright, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office.
The age of the helicopters was not the only problem detailed in the report. Workers were “scrambling” to maintain BSO’s three active helicopters in 2017, the report said, while the director of maintenance “had no idea” what parts he had or how long they have been stored, a safety hazard because many parts have shelf lives.
“This is a serious safety concern that requires immediate attention,” the consultants wrote. “Many parts are shelf-life limited. Lack of parts accountability is unacceptable.”
The consultants added that “the maintenance staff needs help,” with workers “barely able to get by” keeping up with daily maintenance requirements, let alone keep track of parts.
It is unclear whether any of the maintenance and safety issues detailed in the report have been resolved. There is no evidence of another review of the fleet between 2017 and now. No other consultant reports were found in County Commission records since the one in 2017.
Coleman-Wright declined to comment on updates since the 2017 report Wednesday, saying she could not discuss maintenance issues due to the active NTSB investigation.
In a June 2023 budget hearing asking the county for money for new helicopters, Tony told commissioners that the helicopters often go way beyond the recommended number of hours between inspections.
Airbus says that the helicopters need to be grounded after 600 flight hours for “comprehensive strip-down maintenance and repairs” before returning to the air, Tony said. But BSO’s aircraft are going up to 1,000 hours between repairs due to the volume of calls they have to respond to.
Those maintenance checks are vital, said Joseph, the Texas DOT director and former Marine Corps pilot.
“Inherently, maintenance protocols are in place to ensure the components don’t fail and manufacturers prescribe intervals for maintenance checks to be performed,” he said. “You have to be very parochial with those checks, those components, on any airplane, and particularly on helicopters.”
Ruiz, the county administrator, said the Sheriff’s Office never formally asked for helicopters, despite private conversations.
In July 2022, he said, Tony and the county administration met privately, where “the addition of two law enforcement helicopters” was discussed, among other needs. But there was no further movement after those talks.
The Sheriff’s Office never asked for a replacement or additional fleet as part of its budget requests for either of the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 fiscal years, Ruiz said.
In May 2023, the Sheriff’s Office submitted its budget for 2024, which did not include additional helicopters for either law enforcement or Fire Rescue, Ruiz said. The aviation-related requests that the Sheriff’s Office did make, including maintenance and night-vision equipment that is mounted onto the helicopters, were all fully funded, he said.
But Coleman-Wright said that Tony had made the need for new helicopters clear.
“For more than three years, Sheriff Tony communicated with the current and past county administrator regarding BSO’s helicopter needs,” she wrote in an email Wednesday. “He made sure the County was well aware of his concerns before Monday’s tragedy.”
At the June 2023 budget meeting, Commissioner Michael Udine told Tony that he was going to wait on the request “until I see more.”
“I’ve had this conversation with you,” he said. “Show me the justification, and make sure it’s a lot different from when I voted against it in 2017.”
It remains unclear exactly how the age or level of maintenance on the helicopter may have contributed to Monday’s crash. The Broward Sheriff’s Office this week denied a public records request to review the helicopter’s maintenance logs, citing the ongoing NTSB investigation.
The NTSB will release a preliminary report in the next few weeks.
Staff writer Lisa J. Huriash contributed to this report.