Can offshore helicopters become as safe as commercial airlines?
Report from Rotorhub of an excellent RAeS conference this wek at Hamilton Place. Comments? Does everyone agree this is possible?
Offshore helicopter safety has improved by an order of magnitude in the last decade, but can it become as safe as airline transport. Mark Stevens Director Air Safety at Shell Aircraft International seems to think so. Presenting a paper at the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Maritime Operations of Rotorcraft conference on Wednesday, Stevens referred to air safety performance figures that put offshore transport in third place with 4.5 fatal per one million flying hours compared to 2.0 for commuter airlines and 0.6 for average commercial airlines.
Examining how safety has improved in fixed wing operations over the last 30, Stevens points out that Damage tolerant design; system redundancy; improved reliability/crashworthiness, Safety Management Systems, Flight data monitoring have all played their part. Yet such systems have only really started appearing on helicopter in the last 10 years.
An examination of more than 2,000 helicopter accidents carried out by Shell revealed that most accidents could have been prevented had that aircraft met new FAR 29 airworthiness standards. Others could have been prevented through the installation of HUMS or EGPWS and TCAS.
As this new technology is introduced, it’s clear that safety standards will improve yet further, but the risks are going up too, offshore operations are being extended further out to sea in more extreme environments placing more pressure on pilot and machine.
Tony Osborne - Rotorhub.com Editorial Team