movin ‘on
Maybe I can help. When running the Robinson Safety Courses in Oz in the early nineties we were advised by the insurance industry and the government that one in four mustering (cattle herding) light helicopters crashed each year, assuming an annual utilization of 1,000 hours per year.
Due to the complexity of the insurance topics, and the number of people being underinsured, and being hurt in the hip pocket, I began using a number of insurance people from many companies and brokers in an attempt to try and get the right message to the pilots - as to how they can minimize their exposure. It was a hard task, as many insurance guys were not too sure either, and a mustering pilot was in the third highest loss category; after agricultural and private owners (I know it hurts to read the latter for some, but it is the truth!) World underwriters were hell bent on keeping away from the light helicopters in those bad old days.
A decade later, things have settled down, better training, education and supervision has resulted in a big improvement, according to one government department, which advises our CASA on policy, etc.
In fact, our fleet of 1,300 helicopters, over the past six years has had 215 accidents or one every ten days. Of the 215 accidents, 97 were R22 and 14 R44. For the “boffins” amongst us, slightly less than half the fleet are Robinsons (600). Although the R22 flies more hours than the remainder of the fleet, by a large margin.
So how do we compare this to the bad old days? Today, a mustering machine doing the same 1,000 hours pa goes 6 years between accidents, rather 4 a decade ago. The agricultural boys (very few now) and the private owners (now lots) are neck and neck to have the worst accident rate. Unfortunately, there are far more private owners than agricultural operators, no doubt the drought! The private pilot flying 250 hours per year, will have an accident every 6 years – the same as the mustering pilot, but only flying 25% of the hours – the lesson here is very obvious.
Thus the need to have some form of protection for the pilots who may be flying someone else’s machine that may not have insurance, or only partial insurance. Especially, when you hit a wire, injure the passenger and blackout a coal mine, causing mayhem in the mine!
Also, you can’t walk away from the fact that light helicopters kill the pilot in every ten accidents. (About six in your Cessna single engine – goes faster). For every one killed, a large number end up holding a pretty nurse’s hand in a country hospital, recovering from a serious injury. Funerals and roses for your pretty nurse cost money!
The past thirteen years proved we must cover two areas of exposure by using sensible insurance products, they are:
1. The helicopter and all those who go inside and whatever you hit outside, and
2. The nut behind the wheel (you), if you get injured and can’t walk the streets for awhile.
The Oz industry has been supported by many companies who have provided guest speakers to all the pilot gatherings. There is not enough space to list them all; however, two have appeared more often than most and their presentations were found to be very relevant:
They are:
For the helicopter, passengers and what you hit: Ian Tait
[email protected]
For you, loss of license, trauma covers, etc: John Ellis
[email protected]
ConwayB: John was the person you were trying to contact as per a previous post.
"What happens to you after the accident depends on what you did before the accident." Words of wisdom from the insurance gurus.
Safe flying, a special thought to the fire fighters around the world - we have lost three helicopters in the past month.
fom - ans insurance netned idnet et before the accinde