"michael adams" wrote in message
...

Harry Bloomfield; "Esq." wrote in
message ...
Jethro_uk has brought this to us :
Could they not have flown the helicopter higher, and trailed the rope to
be moved into position by people on the ground, and then the rescue
worker goes down that ?

Rescuers could not initially get to him from the ground up, because the
top section ladder was adrift from the chimney. It doesn't explain why
rescuers could not have been lowered down to the chimney top, from the
helicopter.

They reason they gave is the downdraft caused by the helicopter
blowing the chap off of the chimney. I looked this up on the net
with little success but climbing and other fall arrest ropes capable
of taking the weight of a man go to 100's of metres and I very much
doubt ( without any concrete evidence ) that a helicopter hovering
would cause appreciable down draft on the top of a chimney 100 or
more metres below. 10 metres or less, yes, obviously. The rescuer
could be winched down with an easily fitted rescue harness attached
to a separate rope.

My first thought when I heard about the incident was "send a helicopter
winchman down", without thinking of the downdraught. I think the problem
with having the helicopter higher is that the winch cable is then much
longer so any movement in the helicopter or winchman being blown in the
breeze/downdraught like a pendulum is going to be much greater so it will be
much harder for the winchman to stay in exactly the right place as he is
trying to "hit" the chimney to secure his line so he can "land" safely and
jettison the line.

Interesting that when the cherry picker was brought in, its cage was round
the opposite side of the chimney to the victim. I wonder if that was simply
due to which side had access at the bottom, or whether there was another
reason for approaching from that side.