Cause of injury in accidents

[Genghis the Engineer]

I've been trawling the usual statistics (AAIB, NTSB, CAA...) whilst putting together some course notes, looking in particularly at aircraft crashworthiness.

There is lots of very clear analysis available concerning the causes of accidents, and the classes of aeroplanes that suffer them.

However, what I can't find is much evidence as to the actual causes of injuries (fatal or otherwise) when they occur - for example impact injuries, smoke, fire, emergency egress, drowning, etc.


Does anybody know of any such analysis that they can point me at?

G

[Civis]

Genghis,
Several come to mind. University of Southern California Aviation Safety School and NASA.

From personal experience, the lack of or lack of wearing a shoulder harness / inertia reel in a forward impact guarantees a head impact with the yoke or panel. Aircraft with a control / cyclic stick will impart blunt trauma or impalement to the chest / abdomin. I know of a BO105 pilot who ( for whatever strange reason ) was only wearing his lap belt and ruptured his aorta on the cyclic stick in what otherwise was a very surviveable hard landing.

Saw some NASA ( I think it was NASA ) film 20+ years ago using " swing towers " to control the angle and velocity of airframe impacts with ground and objects. One interesting finding was that some long, thin frames
( 20 - 40 Paxs ) would momentarily fold up and then reextend to almost normal shape in low angle flat terrain impact. This could only be seem in slow motion. Explained a lot of previous crush and spine injuries in these types of frames that had been a mystery in the post crash investigations
as the airframe had flexed and reextended to almost normal shape.

Let us know what you find, of much interest to me.

Best regards,
C

[aerolearner]

Here are some documents I downloaded some time ago to learn something about the aeromedical aspects of aircraft accident investigation. Take a look to see if there is anything useful for your research.


AGARD-LS-208 Injury Prevention in Aircraft Crashes: Investigative Techniques and Applications
http://www.rta.nato.int/Pubs/RDP.asp?RDP=AGARD-LS-208

RTO-EN-HFM-113 Pathological Aspects and Associated Biodynamics in Aircraft Accident Investigation
http://www.rta.nato.int/Pubs/RDP.asp?RDP=RTO-EN-HFM-113

AGARD-CP-532 Aircraft Accidents: Trends in Aerospace Medical Investigation Techniques
http://www.rta.nato.int/Pubs/RDP.asp?RDP=AGARD-CP-532

AGARD-CP-597 Impact Head Injury: Responses, Mechanisms, Tolerance, Treatment and Countermeasures
http://www.rta.nato.int/Pubs/RDP.asp?RDP=AGARD-CP-597


US Army Aircraft Crash Survival Design Guide

Volume 1. Design Criteria and Checklists
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/onlinebkup/RAC1191.pdf

Volume 2. Aircraft Design Crash Impact Conditions and Human Tolerance (perhaps the most useful part)
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/onlinebkup/RAC1192.pdf

Volume 3. Aircraft Structural Crash Resistance
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/onlinebkup/RAC1193.pdf

Volume 4. Aircraft Seats, Restraints, Litters, and Cockpit/Cabin Delethalization
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/onlinebkup/RAC1194.pdf

Volume 5. Aircraft Postcrash Survival
http://amelia.db.erau.edu/onlinebkup/RAC1195.pdf


USAF Aircraft Mishap Investigation and Prevention (AMIP) course
http://www.brooks.af.mil/web/af/courses/amip/amip_spring_02/amip_overview_presentations.htm

In particular:
http://www.brooks.af.mil/web/af/courses/amip/amip_spring_02/AFIP_analysis.ppt
http://www.brooks.af.mil/web/af/courses/amip/amip_spring_02/AFIP_Control_Surface_Injuries.ppt


FAA Aerospace Medicine Technical Reports
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/

63/35 Human Factors Aspects of Lightplane Safety
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1960s/media/AM63-35.pdf

66/3 Cockpit design for impact survival
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1960s/media/AM66-03.pdf

66/12 Injury potentials of light-aircraft instrument panels
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1960s/media/AM66-12.pdf

70/16 Survival in emergency escape from passenger aircraft
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM70-16.pdf

71/3 General aviation structures directly responsible for trauma in crash decelerations (nice pictures :( )
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p1.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p2.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p3.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p4.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p5.pdf
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM71-03p6.pdf

72/15 Crash survival analysis of 16 agricultural aircraft accidents
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1970s/media/AM72-15.pdf

80/3 Aircraft crashworthiness studies: Findings in accidents involving an aerial application aircraft
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1980s/media/AM80-03.pdf

81/10 Improving the crashworthiness of general aviation aircraft by crash injury investigations
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1980s/media/AM81-10.pdf

82/7 Crashworthiness studies: Cabin, seat, restraint, and injury findings in selected general aviation accidents
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1980s/media/AM82-07.pdf

83/8 Crashworthiness: An illustrated commentary on occupant survival in general aviation accidents
http://www.faa.gov/library/reports/medical/oamtechreports/1980s/media/AM83-08.pdf


If you have any problem in downloading the documents and you are interested in them, let me know and I will send them to you.

[rhovsquared]

Wow!! Aerolearner,
interesting sites, Pprune is going to worsen my myopia:8 , perhaps when presbyopia occurs (vision changes due to age), however , I'll become more emmetropic ('perfect vision') therefore I conclude Pprune is saving my eyes for the future :\ :}

[Genghis the Engineer]

aerolearner it's going to take me weeks to digest that lot, so for the moment I shall just say thanks!

G

[CD]

Here is another source that you may try...
RGW Cherry & Associates
Aircraft Accident Database
The database currently contains information on 3,376 accidents and of these, textual information is available on 1036. The database was initially intended to carry out analytical work aimed at improving occupant survivability. More recently the scope has been expanded and it now includes information on non-survivable accidents.
Accident Database (http://www.rgwcherry.co.uk/html/accidentdatabase.html)