NASA did a detailed study, published in 2000, on acidents between 1963 and 1997 in USA.
Of the 8,436 accidents recorded by the NTSB, 5,371 involved commercially produced single piston helicopters. Now here's the kicker - of those 5,371 accidents, 1,554 or around
30% were attributed to loss of power. Virtually
every one of the 1,554 loss of engine power accidents ended in the helicopter being destroyed or substantially damaged.
They say in the narrative: "Therefore, the fact that power-off landing proficiency is not required by the FAA to obtain a helicopter pilot's licence certification appears inconsistent with the number of accidents." They go further to say that "...it also appears that helicopters currently in the civil fleet provide marginal to inadequate autorotational capability for the average pilot to successfully complete the final flare and touchdown to a generally unsuitable site.
Clearly, training in full autorotational landings - even to a prepared landing site - is avoided becase of real and perceived risks."
Seems to be pretty strong statistical evidence that pilots are consistently crashing as a result of engine failure. The authors of the study draw the conclusion that the bottom of the auto is entirely to blame, but I would say there must be some accidents in there that were caused by a slow reaction to the engine failure, with the obvious results.
The final quote above is also very interesting, because they seem to be saying that even in the face of obvious evidence that pilots consistently crash at the bottom of an auto, there is resistance to teaching the exercise because of "...real and
perceived risks.
SASless, the US did avidly teach touchdown auto's, but during the Vietnam period when many pilots were needed very quickly, they discovered that the acident rate during training was way too high - so they stopped it. I don't however, think that the sausage factory of Vietnam era training applies to the situation now.
By the way; of the 5,371 single piston accidents, 18% involved instruction.
Anyway folks, there are some stats - what do you reckon??
