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Aviation History
2003
2003 - 2532.PDF
Helicopter safety LI SSONS LEARNED The best helicopter companies rival airlines for safety standards despite the complexity of their tasks. How do they do it? DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON Helicopter safety rates vary enor mously according to the aircraft's capabilities and equipment, who is flying it, and what it is being used for. But the biggest single factor seems to be the operator's cultural and procedural approach to safety. Helicopters receive a lot of bad publicity that many rotary-wing operating compa nies do not deserve, so it is worth consider ing how the best in the industry achieve their high levels of safety. At one end of the spectrum, as in the fixed-wing sector, is the piston-single machine, owned or flown by a helicopter private pilot licence holder. At the other extreme is the commercial transport opera tion. This is flown in a sophisticated, multi engined, instrument meteorological condi tions (IMC)-equipped helicopter by two pilots, both with instrument ratings (IR). The captain and possibly the co-pilot will also hold air transport pilot licences. Between these extremes, civil helicopter pilots carry out professional work of a stag gering variety, from agricultural and air ambulance flying, to police work and search and rescue. Some of this activity is inher ently dangerous - yet even operators that carry out high-risk tasks have a consistently good safety record. Transport tasks include air taxi, corporate work and offshore oil sup port in different flying environments, rang ing from the relatively benign Gulf of Mexico to the perilous North Sea. Finally, there are a few regular helicopter link ser vices run by scheduled airlines. Where industry works closely with - or even sets the pace for - the regulatory authorities, lessons learned have reduced accident rates dramatically. The oft-cited North Sea arena is an example of this, according to Capt Brian Hodge, chief of flight operations (helicopters) at the UK Civil Aviation Authority's Safety Regulation Group. "Some 15 years ago, we used to have a ditching every two to three years on aver age. Now, it hardly ever happens." Many of the improvements made to equipment and operational techniques have been industry- driven. Hodge says they include: • fitting of health and usage operating systems; • industry-driven introduction of twin crewing - even where it is not compulsory; • introduction of cockpit resource management training for pilots in multi- crew aircraft, rather than merely adding a second pilot; • use of operational data from flight data recorders to enable analysis of flight opera tions practices, and improving procedures and individual training. This shows that North Sea operators wanted safety to improve and were pre pared to invest to do it. All helicopters used in the area are twin-engined, twin-piloted, and with both pilots possessing a full IR. 36 4-10 NOVEMBER 2003 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL www.flightinternational.com
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