Originally Posted by
Jim59
Why don't they fit safety guards around the tail fan to prevent such accidents? Helicopters often embark/disembark passengers with rotors revolving so are a greater risk to passengesr than most fixed wing aircraft.
There are shrouded fans/rotors which are serious structural items. A basic wire guard carries the risk of coming loose or becoming snagged and destroying the tail rotor in flight, which seems like a far greater risk simply from the relative proportion of time in the air vs time near people on the ground.
It's very difficult to determine an engineering fix for a rare situation where the fix doesn't have its own risks.
The full solution would be NOTAR, but I expect that has cost/performance issues vs tail rotors.
So horrible for the family and the helicopter operators.
I think there have been far more people injured or killed by fixed wing propeller accidents - but that might simply be the relative proportion of fixed wing to rotary wing.