Helicopter accident at Kaskasapakte

The helicopter accident at Kaskasapakte occurred early in the morning of 11 August 2000, when a Eurocopter AS332M1 Super Puma (Helikopter 10) with callsign "Helge 94" from the Norrland Helicopter Squadron (1. hkpskv) crashed during a rescue operation at the mountain Kaskasapakte in the Tarfala massif, about 70 kilometres west of Kiruna. All three members of the crew were killed.

The rescue operation that led to the accident

On 9 August a search began for two men who had been reported missing in connection with climbing the mountain Kaskasapakte in the Tarfala massif. The men had left the Swedish Tourist Association's mountain hut at Tarfala on the morning of 8 August to climb the mountain via the southwest ridge. On the evening of 9 August the temperature had dropped and it began to blow and rain hard. As the men had not returned during the evening, mountain rescue was contacted, which together with a private individual belonging to a climbing course organised by the Swedish Climbing Federation set off up the east ridge. Severe weather, however, put a stop to this and the group was forced to spend the night in a bivouac sack, in order early in the morning of 10 August to turn back down towards the hut at Tarfala.

On the morning of 10 August a rescue helicopter of the type Eurocopter AS332 Super Puma (Air Force designation: Helikopter 10) belonging to 1. hkpskv at F21 in Luleå arrived with personnel from the Mountain Rescue alpine group in Kiruna. After reloading, two rope teams were set down from the helicopter on the mountain's northwest and southwest ridges. Because of ice formation and bad weather, however, both rope teams were forced to turn back down towards the Tarfala research station, where the police had set up incident command.

At lunchtime on 10 August contact was established with one of the men in distress via a very poor mobile connection, and after a number of attempts their position on the mountain ridge could be confirmed. During the afternoon a group from mountain rescue was flown to the start of the southwest ridge, and at an altitude of 1,900 metres the two men were found, in good spirits but very exhausted. They had spent the night in a bivouac sack. Because of the low-lying cloud cover it was not possible to lift out the men in distress by helicopter, and after a failed attempt to lower the men by rope, the decision was taken to make an attempt to winch them out as soon as the weather allowed.

The cause of the accident

In the subsequent accident report the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority could not establish any direct cause of the accident. No technical fault could be demonstrated, nor any medical condition in the crew that could have contributed. Difficult visual conditions prevailed at the site, and backlight from the dawn sky in combination with alternating bright strips of snow and dark rock formations is assessed to have affected the crew's night vision and made distance judgement more difficult. The investigation also established that the crew may have experienced a certain time pressure to make full use of the weather situation. Against this background, the choice of flight path, without having carried out an initial reconnaissance overflight, was an indirect cause of the accident that occurred.