Originally Posted by
aa777888
Copied nearly verbatim from my post on this in another thread back in July 2017...
For all you Robinson bashers, a quick search of the NTSB database shows that, for 2017 through the end of July (the last time I looked at the stat's), the following breakdown of accidents by manufacturer occurred:
Sikorsky - 2 (11 fatalities total)
Schweizer - 3
All other types - 6 (2 fatalities total)
Hughes/MD - 8 (6 fatalities total)
Airbus/Eurocopter - 9 (1 fatality total)
Bell - 25 (20 fatalities total)
Robinson - 34 (17 fatalities total)
Let's unpack this a bit.
Both Bell and Robinson had 11 Fatal accidents totalling 27 fatalities for Bell and 20 for Robbie up until 1 October.
These are global stats.
Now the Bell's have higher seating capacity with 1 accident taking 9 lives in a 412, as an example. This does skew the "facts" a little.
What is more relevant are that the Bell accidents are generally commercial in nature including rescue services and photography, a number of these are CFIT.
The Robbie accidents are more recreational or light commercial work. The majority are described as impacting terrain in VMC. The impact being a result of an unplanned/unexpected loss of altitude.
CFIT accidents you'd expect during high risk ops. Falling out the sky for no apparent reason during relatively mundane ops is something wholly different.
Robinson would always have you believe it's pilot error, that just seems a bit of a cop out. You can sing the praises of that little tin-can deathtrap but the reality is that it continues to cull pilots and and often good-ones at that.