Looks like the press are guilty of under-reporting, my information indicates that there have been far more accidents than are shown in the above article.
Simple statistics for the GOM (with a comparison against 2001 - OGP figures) appears to indicate:
- 2003 so far; 14 accidents
- 2003 so far; 6 fatal accidents
- 2003 so far; accidents per 100 000 hrs = 4.66 (2001 accidents per 100 000 hrs = 1.77)
- 2003 so far; fatal accidents per 100 000 = 2 (2001 fatal accidents per 100 000 = 0.22)
It is difficult to understand the comment from Gomer Pylot that there is nothing the FAA can do about customer pressure. Oversight by the FAA of the practices in the GOM must now be on the cards given the above accident record.
If the FAA are not driven to act, the ASRS confidential incident reporting system can be used to highlight the problems due to commercial pressure.
A view recently expressed indicates that what is needed is an inculcation of a safety culture into these operations - they are becoming a source of embarrassment to our industry.