Twins are not safer than singles.
Engine failures in the GOM are not routinely fatal, nor are they anywhere else, generally.
If you don't believe this, you need to look at some studies. I'm not digging it up, but the US Army did a study decades ago that showed forced landings following complete loss of power, did not meet "Class A" standards 90 (95?) per cent of the time. Class A, as I recall, is fatal or aircraft destroyed.
Compare that to helo accidents in general- 90 per cent are pilot error. Yes, some of those errors involve power problems poorly handled.
Contrast that with evidence that twins crash more than singles. The OGP study I cited earlier in this thread has shown this for years. Off the top of my head, 46 (47?) of the 69 EMS crashes in the states in the last 4 years, were twins. I've flown'em, in the GOM, something like 25,000 landings and 4000 hours, in the old tech- 355F series, the 412, a very little time in the 222, a single trip in a Puma- and what I've observed many times in the 105 (never had the pleasure, or the curse, of a 'Kow assignment)- these aircraft are NOT user friendly. Oh well "better training," "they're used more hazardously"... perhaps true. Perhaps the ECs and 4th gen twins are better, and perhaps computerization just adds a new failure mode. If you believe twins are better, show some evidence to back it. Not legislation, resulting from the urge to claim accomplishment in resolving a"problem."- show statistics. Not "It's more expensive so it must be better," that's pure bias. Not policies. Evidence.
I'll also point out that the airlines are routinely reducing the number of engines... Which brings another point up- the one thing that is inarguably true is that two pilot crews ARE safer.
Well?
Last edited by Devil 49; 9th May 2005 at 01:10.