The Media "Good Safety Record"

[iRaven]

After yesterday's dreadful and devastating news, I keep hearing the same thing from the media...

"The Lynx helicopter is considered to have an extremely good safety record"

...does it really? I would say it is like any other. Have a look at Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety WikiBase > ASN Aviation Safety Database results (http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/dblist.php?AcType=LYNX)

I count a 101 fatalities in Lynx over its 42 years. On average, considering they normally carry 5 persons, then that is 1 fatal accident every 2 years for the type.

There are 78 accidents where the Lynx was written off in the above link (I'm guessing that is Cat4/5 equivalent?). I also remember seeing a Lynx laying its side between KAF and LKG in 2008 in the desert - that's not in this database. However, 78 accidents in 42 years is nearly 2 per year - to me that's not "an extremely good safety record" and I woukd say it was decidely "average"!

Come on media 'experts' - get it right!

iRaven

[srobarts]

iRaven, you have drawn conclusions from the top level stats which do not reflect the true status. I have not read every record, but a random dip into those listed include ones damaged by hail, captured by insurgents in Libya, was on board a frigate that sank, was on board a destroyer that sank, destroyed by fire on the Atlantic Conveyor, ran out of fuel. Others just say crashed so there is no indication if it was a technical problem.
Perhaps if you care to analyse all the records and research those where information is scarce you could give an accurate figure for those that could be attributed to the design and manufacture. Otherwise your conclusion could be seen as dubious as you are suggesting the media are guilty of.

[sprucemoose]

Hi, iRaven - this was the first accident involving an upgraded Lynx AH9A, which has put on a lot of hours under tough conditions in Afghan. That at least is a pretty good safety record, IMHO.

[melmothtw]

iRaven, perhaps you (and some others) should offer your services to the BBC etc. You seem to know so much about it.

[alfred_the_great]

I suppose the real question is if tuc has approved the safety case.

[iRaven]

All valid points, but even if half that which I first explained (and the fatality figures are as they are stated), it can hardly he crowed about as an 'extremely good safety record'. I also believe the one on its side in 2008 was an AH9 - one of the first to go to theatre.

Please don't think I'm cussing the Lynx and its crews, it's just the "extremely good safety record" that is intriguing me by the media.

iRaven

[ShotOne]

Raven does have a point, if only in highlighting the lazy reporting inflicted on anything to do with aviation. Particularly when contrasted with their treatment of the super-puma. Even though it flies day in day out over the oggin often in brutal conditions, it suffers five accidents and it's a death trap!

[ralphmalph]

I can only speak for the AAC aircraft over the past 15years..

23-APR-2013 Westland Lynx British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Kandahar Airfield

Weather damage (Hail)

01-DEC-2011 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ210 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 near Tatenhausen, Halle (Westfalen)

Servicing error/SOAP sample error

18-MAR-2007 Westland Lynx AH7 ZD276 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland

Pilot Error

06-MAY-2006 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ614 Royal Marines Commando 5 Basra

Enemy Action

21-FEB-2005 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ646 Royal Marines Commando 0 Modrinja, near Sarajevo

Wire Strike.

09-SEP-2004 Westland Lynx AH9 ZE382 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 6 Namest nad Oslavou, 19 mi W of Brn

Wire Strike.

19-SEP-2001 Westland Lynx AH9 ZG922 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Omani desert

Pilot error during dust take off at night.

23-FEB-2001 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ664 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire

Mechanical failure/Tail Rotor

17-APR-2000 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ207 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Boxberg

Mechanical Failure/tail rotor

02-MAR-2000 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ662 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Mullaghbawn, Northern Ireland

Enemy Action.


The obvious two TR incidents stick out…..but what about the rest?

Sprucemoose is right, the Mk9A has been working hard with no incident thus far.

If you went down the list and stripped out all of the non-tech faults and took account for the way in which military aircraft are operated. Apart from a period in the 90's it has performed well.

Hardly a surprise when the design has been around so long.

[GreenKnight121]

Your numbers cover 415 Lynx of all types built, over 42 years service from both land and sea.



One example is the Netherlands - they operated 24 Lynx from 1976-2012, for more than 160,000 combined flight hours. 4 of their Lynx were destroyed.

Two were lost at sea on night missions in 1982 (and thus likely controlled flight into the water, not mechanical failure).

The other two were written off with no fatalities - one in 1998 from an engine fire and one on 10 March 2011 in combat in Lybia - this was not destroyed, but was returned to the Netherlands in August 2012 and scrapped.



If you actually look at comparable military helicopters over the same period (if that's not too much work), you will find that the Lynx does indeed have at least an average, if not better than average, safety record when compared to any other generally similar design.


This is not to say that there couldn't be improvements - the Lynx has a ~33 per million flight hours incident of tail rotor failure (about half of which were caused by the rotor hitting an object, not by mechanical failure) - compared to ~24 for the Puma, ~23 for the Sea King, and ~20 for the AH-1 Cobra and SH-2 SeaSprite.

Data from http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_01.PDF

[ShotOne]

Neither Raven nor anyone else is dissing the Lynx as far as I can tell, green knight, but why have you chosen to consider only technical failures in your analysis? A safety record is a safety record and only a small minority of accidents these days result directly and solely from technical reasons.

[melmothtw]

why have you chosen to consider only technical failures in your analysis? A
safety record is a safety record and only a small minority of accidents these
days result directly and solely from technical reasons.


I don't want to speak for GreenKnight, but I'm guessing he's only considered technical failures because those are the only types of failures that reflect the safety of a particular machine. If a Lynx is shot down, or the pilot flies it into wires/rolls on landing/etc, then it can hardly be attributed to an inherent fault with the airframe (which was the implication of iRaven's OP about the Lynx's safety record).

[diginagain]

........normally carry 5 persons.......I don't see any relevance in this statement; in flying AH1, AH1(GT), 7 and 9 I've had anywhere between 1, and 11 plus a dog onboard at any one time.

[P6 Driver]

Could it be that from a Media point of view, the Lynx doesn't appear to have a "bad" safety record as it's not always in the news for those reasons, so it must therefore be "good"?

[4Greens]

To achieve a reasonable idea of safety level, you have to compare total accidents in a set periond with the number of sorties - not easy with a helicopter.

[SafeAsHouses]

he's only considered technical failures because those are the only types of failures that reflect the safety of a particular machine.


Not wanting to get bogged down in semantics but this statement is misleading. If you are considering that a 'technical failure' is defined as some equipment or system not meeting its design intent then these are certainly not 'the only types of failures that reflect the safety of a particular machine'

An aircraft can be perfectly serviceable but have inherent design flaws that can lead to aircrew interacting with the environment in a way that ultimately leads to a crash. These could be issues related to unacceptable workload, mode confusion, inadequate or inappropriately displayed flight parameters amongst many others. Consequently, every incident should be considered part of the safety record until an external and ultimately unavoidable cause to the crash has been determined.

Even enemy action can't be discounted if part of the safety requirements are the proper functioning of DASS and any protective survivability aspects have been considered e.g. inerting fuel tanks for small arms fire etc.

I'm just saying its more complicated than technical failures.

[Chugalug2]

atg:-
I suppose the real question is if tuc has approved the safety case.
Nice to know there is one for a change. Cheap shot alfred.

[alfred_the_great]

Not really. Tuc bangs on about safety cases as if they were the sine qua non of military aviation. They are an important part, but not critical.

[melmothtw]

SafeAsHouses. You joined in 2007 and have written just one post - that's some serious lurking ;-).

[StuartP]

As someone occasionally on the wrong end of media requests about safety records in my own (far less interesting) industry, I suspect P6 Driver has nailed it.

[ShotOne]

melmoth, if only some other posters (self included) maintained such a good ratio of well-considered posts to lurking:)

P6, yes, and this was, I believe exactly the OP's intent, i.e. to highlight lazy journalism rather than imply any inherent fault with the Lynx.

[SafeAsHouses]

Tuc bangs on about safety cases as if they were the sine qua non of military aviation. They are an important part, but not critical.

It’s a day for semantics! The safety analyses that inform the design and form the Safety Case are indeed the sine qua non of aviation not just military aviation. I suspect when you refer to the Safety Case you mean the Safety Case Report that summarises the safety case and reports the residual risk related to the operation of the platform. Whilst that could be argued to be ‘not critical’ (after all it’s a report), the compliance evidence and safety analyses generated through the design and build that form the safety case certainly are critical.
Otherwise you are just building aircraft to prevent yesterday’s accidents and not to prevent the foreseeable but as yet non experienced accidents.

[melmothtw]

to highlight lazy journalism rather than imply any inherent fault with the Lynx.

But as has already been pointed out by others, in drawing conclusions from the top level stats without considering the underlying reasons behind them (aircraft shot down/ pilot error/etc), iRaven is guilty of the same offence.

melmoth, if only some other posters (self included) maintained such a good ratio of well-considered posts to lurking

Agreed (self included also!)

[SafeAsHouses]

that's some serious lurking ;-).


As I get older I've found my 'buttons' get more sensitive :-)

[dervish]

Not really. Tuc bangs on about safety cases as if they were the sine qua non of military aviation. They are an important part, but not critical.

You are an idiot.

[Chugalug2]

Well said dervish! I would have thought that military aviation might reasonably expect to be supplied with airworthy aircraft so that it had only to concentrate on an enemy trying to destroy it. It seems that others nearer home should be taken into account too...

[MOSTAFA]

As an army pilot for 25+ years I always considered one day, I just might have an accident? I believe the type of flying we did, in some very in-hospitable places - it was likely. But what I never considered was that I'd end up as one of those statistics through no fault of my own why; because something fell off like a rotor blade or a door which wrecked the tail rotor or an AFCS computer decided it wanted to go another way much faster the the airframe could cope with. That's why everytime I was posted back to a Lynx Squadron I made damn sure my other half knew that if should something catastrophic happened through no fault of my own she should sell everything (if necessary) and sue the barstuards that built it because anybody that thinks Lynx (Army) has a good safety record is sadly deluded. We can all say Mk 1/7/9s are different but using that to hide statistics is crass.

I can't speak about the 9A because I never flew one.

As for Paul Beaver making comments on the TV - he is obviously using his LACK of thousands of hours experience on type to qualify the crap he talking! He has never been an Army Pilot to my knowledge, unless of course like several other senior officers the AAC gave him a badge for turning up one day and doing his media bit.

Who actually gives a stuff how many hours it's flown in a such a short time in Afghanistan - if it isn't up to it - it should not being doing it full stop.

[Tourist]

"Otherwise you are just building aircraft to prevent yesterday’s accidents and not to prevent the foreseeable but as yet non experienced accidents. "

We should be building aircraft which kill the enemy effectively not to keep aircrew safe.

Safety is nice to have, but not as essential as being operationally effective.

RN lynx is very effective. It also filled most of an entire hangar of the old RN air accident investigation dept.....

[betty swallox]

Tourist. I'm not sure I've ever read more bollox on PPRuNe than that.

These are mutually exclusive. One is different, completely, from the other.

Of course a "warplane" must do it's job, but not to the exclusion of the crew's safety.

Having flown in the mob for 24 years, I have never, never found anyone that thinks they'd get in an unsafe aircraft because they felt the operational necessity outweighed their lives.

Have a word...

[dervish]

We should be building aircraft which kill the enemy effectively not to keep aircrew safe.

Safety is nice to have, but not as essential as being operationally effective.


You, too, are an idiot.

[lynxlurker]

I have long been a non-contributing observer, and fan, of this website. However, I feel compelled to finally write as I feel that this is exactly the type of thread that brings out the worst in PPrune. For background, I have >1000 hrs on Lynx and >2500 hrs as an Army Pilot. I slept on the decision to post, and still will.

The Lynx, and I have flown 7/9/9A on operations, is not different to any other military type. It has its moments, but as do all aircraft. Having spent some serious time in Aviation Effectiveness, and in particular Measurements of Effectiveness and Performance, I can say with some authority that it has a good safety record. It does. Compared to what you might ask? I can state that in terms of incidents and accidents per flying hour, incidents and accidents per taskline and overall incidents per year of service it is in the top third of UK helicopter types. For obvious reasons, I will not state the entire list in order.

Some deluded individuals seem to believe that we can live in a perfect world with no risk at all in military flying. Clearly this must be reduced to a sensible level, but not to the cost of losing military effectiveness. In a deployed operational sense, not putting the aircraft in harms way is safe, but will lead to the death of others, those who ultimately we fly for. Infantry are not less valuable than aircrew. The taxpayer, and Defence, have not bought your aircraft as a safe toy for you to enjoy. It is a machine of war to be used like any other. If you want the safest flying in the world, do not join the Armed Forces. This is so obvious I can't believe that I am actually writing it. We are in serious danger of making military flying so absurdly audited, supervised and constrained that we simply transfer the risk of aviation to those on the ground by not supporting them in the manner that we can and should.

I seriously hope that there is no single-service agenda with some on this site deriding Lynx. It is no secret that the RAF are unconvinced with Lynx/LUH/Wildcat. Please do not let this colour normally impeccable judgement. It is my belief that the Army and Armed Forces desperately need a Light ISTAR and liaison helicopter. If this is not your belief then please don't exploit this incident for your own gain.

Please also remember the context in which you post. Do you really want people, including journalists, to see one aircraft type derided at a time when 5 servicemen have yet to be repatriated? Do you really feel those comments to be wholly appropriate in the circumstances? MOSTAFA, if you feel so strongly about flying Lynx, then don't do it. Leave. Threatening retrospectively to sue for something that you are not compelled to do is retarded, childish and smacks of pathetic self-imposed martyrdom.

We are privileged people as military aircrew. Please let's remember how to act and why we are employed. Not selfishly to make our own lives safe, but selflessly to serve those we fly over and for.

I won't post again. RIP Pies, Spen and Bungle. You were Lynx aircrew, and I am proud to stand alongside you as such.

[SafeAsHouses]

Tourist,
Either this is a fairly obvious troll or a fine example of the Dunning-Kruger effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect). I’ll assume the latter and try to address the point. OK, let’s reduce the aircrew to the status of equipment to fight the enemy. Would you accept that a shoddy small arms weapon that jammed regularly would fulfil its functional requirement to fire bullets but may get its operator killed? Why would you place an aircraft in operation that had an inherent risk that may kill the operators thus significantly reducing the operational effectiveness. Maintainability, Availability, Cost, Operational Effectiveness and Safety are all part of the trade-off but within the framework of ensuring that a justifiable ALARP argument can be made. Operational commanders given the information on which to assess risk can of course consider individual risk assessments based on a specific operational imperative.

[MOSTAFA]

Lynx lurker.

If you feel I am in any way at all trying to be derogatory to the crew of the recent accident you are sooooooo wrong.

My comments come from my >7000 hrs of army flying and I stand by everything I said. As for 'leave' I did, 10 years ago to the North Sea hence I have never flown a 9A. I equally feel your loss sadly as I have too many times before.

Please feel free to PM me should you want further clarification.

[Tourist]

In 1961, Kennedy stated that America would be on the moon before the end of the 60's.

He was correct.

Recently, America has stated that they would like to go back to the moon but have given themselves a longer timescale.

I wonder why?

Is it because we have gone backwards in materials technology, computers, jet propulsion theory and all other areas of relevant science?

On the contrary, we are light years ahead in all those areas.
So why is it more difficult to get to the moon?f

It is because of chisellers demanding that it should be "safe."

This has reduced the US to piggy-backing on Russian rockets which are scarcely more than the ICBM's they derived from.

Many on here and in military aviation in general fail to see the big picture, perhaps because we have not had a war in a while.

By war, I mean those big fights that you don't get to choose to be involved in and opt out of when they get sticky. The sort of war where hundreds of thousands of civilians get killed and raped, not the sort of war where the greatest loss of life is accidents and post conflict suicide.


Yes, accidents are bad for operational effectiveness if there are too many of them, but it is a balance.

If every time aircraft A gets airborne it crashes unrelated to enemy action, then bad for effectiveness.
If however, aircraft A crashes once a year in peacetime accidents, but is absolutely devastating to the enemy in wartime, a real war winner, then perhaps it is worth it.

Every safety feature fitted to an aircraft has a performance penalty and/or a cost penalty. When it comes to war, that tiny tenth of a percentage point in increased payload, speed, range, height or being able to buy more might just make the difference between winning and losing a war.

Winners get to fight on the losers territory. If we are not willing to accept the same level of risk as the enemy, then we will lose because we hand him an advantage.

Not lose as in lose a few aircrew who volunteered and in general accept the risk, but lose as in lose our loved ones, our homes and our culture.

Militaries need to accept loss of life in peacetime in the interests for minimising loss of life when the big one comes.

[melmothtw]

It is because of chisellers demanding that it should be "safe."

Is it? Perhaps it's because sticking one on the Russians isn't seen as being as important as it was back at the height of the Cold War (at least it wasn't until very recently perhaps).

Thread drift.

[betty swallox]

Chisellers. That's complete ar$e. Tell that to the Nimrod relatives.

[Tourist]

And you are an arse for making that comment.

Trying to involve emotion to cover up your weak argument is crass.

Yes more people will die in peacetime if we do military properly, but if we don't intend to do it properly, then why don't we save even more lives by not having a military at all?

Same result in the end, but you lose a war a lot more cheaply and with less lives lost if you don't fight at all rather than fighting a losing battle.

[betty swallox]

Oh. I really can't be bothered with this...

I'm out

[Tourist]

Thank you for your valuable input to this debate.

[betty swallox]

Love the "patronisation". Just great.

Look, I'm just saying that we should try and make the craft that we fly in as safe as possible. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

There's frankly no need for your sarcasm.

[Tourist]

Betty

Reread your own contributions to this thread, and then ask yourself whether some sarcasm was in fact warranted after your flouncing out of the thread taking your Barbie dolls with you.:rolleyes:

[nowherespecial]

This brings spat brings up an interesting question which I'd like people's thoughts on:

Which CURRENT ac do the services in general have overall airworthiness concerns over.

I take both sides of tourist and betty's little tet a tet, war is risky and ac need to be fit for military purposes if that is what they are procured for but they should also be as safe as they can be. It should be the situation they are put in which is dangerous, not the ac itself.

From historical info and my cr&p memory, Lynx Mk 1, Chinook pre MoK, Nimrod but from the current fleet I'm curious.

Any thoughts?

[Lordflasheart]

I am given to understand the 'seaworthiness' of the UK Apache was/is a bit questionable - from concerns noted during/after Op Ellamy. Depends on whether they have now fitted flotation gear and improved canopy jettison, or are those improvements dependent on the future upgrade programme ? LFH

[nowherespecial]

A fair point Flash but that's us using kit for one purpose which it was not designed for (maritime ops). The AH is a very good design for what it was designed to do (land ops and destroying the enemy with a variety of weapons)? It also has fail safes inherent in the design.

Not disagreeing that the situation (water ops) we put it in was very unsafe, it was, I'm that I'm not sure the fault lies with the manufacturer here.

I'm thinking of a long list of technical issues which call an airworthiness certificate (or whatever it's called today) into question.

[Red Line Entry]

I would suggest that if serving military personnel have genuine concerns about the airworthiness of current military aircraft there are far more professional ways to address the issue than to post anonymously on an internet forum!

[nowherespecial]

Of course there are and I'm not suggesting this is the way, more just curious.

[melmothtw]

Speaking as a journalist myself I'd say that was an excellent attempt at fishing there nowherespecial, if a little transparent...

[SilsoeSid]

Have we really already forgotten this ...

FileSwap.com : Lynx Widow Maker.mp4 download free (http://www.fileswap.com/dl/bgxyONNjzS/)


In Special Report: ‘The Widow Maker’, ITV Westcountry’s popular investigative current affairs series reveals a disturbing picture behind the safety record of Britain’s Lynx helicopter fleet – an aircraft dubbed by some pilots and families, as The Widow Maker.

During a three-month investigation, producer/director Ray Tostevin talked to aircrews and their families and leading aviation experts. One former Royal Navy Lynx pilot tells the programme he believes tail rotor failure was the most likely cause of a crash in which four Lynx crewmen died, when their aircraft went down off Cornwall, last December. The programme claims that the Lynx has more tail rotor failures than any other military helicopter operated by the Ministry of Defence, based on a damning report from the Civil Aviation Authority.

[iRaven]

Well from all of the replies, I think we can deduce that Lynx does not have a "extremely good safety record" - at best it is in the "top third" but probably more likely "average".

Melmoth - if you are a journo, please ask your chums to aspire to quality reporting. And while we're at it, can you only quote Suitably Qualified and Experienced Persons (SQEPs) and not some idiot outside Poundland giving a soundbite on something they know c0ck all about. I want quality journalism, not comedy journalism!

iRaven

[melmothtw]

not some idiot outside Poundland giving a soundbite on something they know c0ck all about.

Sounds more like Pprune than Poundland.

Only joking(ish). Offer your services iRaven. I'm sure we'd all love to hear what experts such as yourself have to say.

[nowherespecial]

Melmothtw

I can assure you I am absolutely not a journalist, merely an ex mil pilot now working for a major RW operator with a few mins a day to spare to find out what's happening in the pprune world.

Idle curiosity is my major flaw, not being a journo.
;)

[melmothtw]

Fair enough nowherespecial, i was just being facetious. No offence intended (as I know that being called a journalist can be as be about as flattering as being labelled a paedo in some circles, not least on PPrune).

[nowherespecial]

Hey I worked in recruitment for a while, I know the feeling....!