Looking for Accident Rates by type of helo

[ElcRico]

I'm trying to find a website that posts accident rates/statistics by type of helicopter.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ER

[Flying Bull]

Hi Elcrico,

try Helicopter Safety | Home (http://www.helicoptersafety.org/) for a beginnging

Greetings Flying Bull

[widgeon]

NTSB has database for US only, you can download into an access database and run queries to get some raw stats . I am not aware of any worldwide database . That only gives part of the equation as you also need to have total flight hrs and landiings by type to get any meaningful data. There are some reports by HAI that give rates by mission type but I have not seen any published data of rate by type.

Here are top in terms of numbers of accidents from 2005 to 2008 IN USA,

b206
r22
h269
r44
as350

See hai site for more
http://www.rotor.com/portals/12/1234.pdf

Statistics (http://www.rotor.com/Default.aspx?tabid=597)

[ElcRico]

Thanks guys....much appreciated

[EN48]

May also be useful:

Griffin Helicopters | Accident Statistics (http://www.griffin-helicopters.co.uk/accidentstatindex.asp)

[Shawn Coyle]

The real problem you will have is finding out the number of hours / operations/ whatever to make the 'rate' part of your equation work.
There is simply no reliable record anywhere of the hours flown by any type.

[widgeon]

Yep , the HAI site gives overall rate compared to hrs and landings but I am not sure if the OEM's would release annual fleet hrs to the general public.

[VeeAny]

Widgeon

I think the Griffin accident database is the closest thing we have at the moment to a wordlwide one, thats certainly its intention, but it can never contain details of every single one.

As Shawn correctly points out where exactly we would get the necessary data for hours flown or landings I don't know, the UK CAA did provide me with some data to add to the Griffin dB but it is incomplete and always will be, I don't think the OEMS would (or could) know, they might have an idea, but they don't know. If we use the rough hours it gives us an indication, but it will never ever be the real figures.

I don't believe anyone who claims to have hours or landing data, has the real figures as they are not collected in their entirety by anyone.

I'll dig out the flying hours stuff I do have in the next few days and see if I can wire it up, I did write the import routine but never got around to making the data available on Griffin or Helicopter Safety.

ElcRico anything in particular you are looking for, I might be able to extract it for you.

Gary

[Helinut]

Shawn and GS are right that the main problem to accident rates is getting the denominator (i.e. the amount of flying in which the accidents have occurred). You also need to look carefully at what is meant by an "accident". These can get defined differently in different databases.

It is possible to get more accurate figures if you look more narrowly. In the UK (and probably elsewhere) accurate stats are available of flying hours and sectors for "public transport". In the UK that is because the CAA charges operators on that basis. Certain sectors have good stats too - the best example is offshore. For example, the UK sector offshore has various detailed reports of accident rates. Indeed the CAA provide annual reports of rates to those who have an interest.

The problem with looking narrowly is that for a set of "rare" events like accidents, the population size can be small, which means that, statistically, you cannot have much confidence in the results.

If you are trying to make comparisons between types there can be other issues that affect rates, that are not really attributable to the type, but to the predominant use that the types are put to. For example, a type used for PPL ab-initio flying will have a higher accident rate than one which is not used significantly in that type of flying.

It might help if you tell us what you want to do with the accident information, unless I missed that?