How many?

[Trans Lift]

Just out of interest. How many accidents has there been this year involving helicopters on a global scale? I'm talking about fatal ones. Seems like in the last couple of weeks that something has happened or someone dies in some accident every week. It seems like its a particularly bad year!

Fly safe

[widgeon]

My impression is this year they have been more accidents involving larger types with multiple fatalities . These tend to grab the headlines . The NTSB site is down this morning .
First 6 months of 2009 , 19 accidents involving fatalties , 72 killed
same period 2008 , 22 accidents 77 killed.
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/query.asp#query_start
US figures include Accident in Russia and the Cougar accident plus a few other non US ( database has gone down for a while ),

[ppheli]

I have access to a research project which currently lists 308 accidents so far this year (civil and military), 67 of which are fatal involving 265 fatalities.

Of these, six accidents have fatalities in double figures, totaling 103 fatalities between these six.

[mickjoebill]

67 of which are fatal involving 265 fatalities.

How many of these fatalities were pilots?


Mickjoebill

[VeeAny]

ppheli

Is that fixed wing and helicopters ? Seems awfully high for helicopters alone.

[widgeon]

Griffin Helicopters also has a excellent world database ( for helicopters only ) .
Is seems to suggest lower figure

Griffin Helicopters | Accident Database (http://www.griffin-helicopters.co.uk/accidents.asp?manufacturerkey=&ACType=&OrderBy=Date+DESC&acregn=&mostrecent=&fatal=on&Cause=&detail=&Filter=&exclude=&since=01%2F01%2F09&until=&Day=&Month=&Year=)

92 accidents year to date , 25 which involved fatalties.

Have the miltary had that bad a year ?

[topendtorque]

Certainly a few missing there, the recent Springvale West Oz midair (two fatals) for one.
I did a quick search on 'Helicopter accidents' using the search button above and came up with a whole host of stuff, mostly not R/W.

I don't know whether the mods or the users would favor a pprune accident catalogue. pprune certainly threads most of the bad accidents i think.

It may be a useful tool for some-one, certainly as a training aid to disseminate causal factors, it would be useful if the known causes were also listed.

We used to have a collection of broken, cracked or chafed bits and discuss in detail causes, effects of etc. as static items.

We also talked about the finger trouble stuff, like T/R strikes, how to avoid them, but we were cute enough to make sure that all were competent in landing after a strike, T/R failure, provided of course one still had a C of G worth talking about.

Fuel pump seal failures, how long it might take to drain the tanks, followed by competency in EOL's, heaps of different scenarios.

A lot of it came from our personal experiences.

That sort of coal face stuff made a tremendous impact on our safety record.

Certainly a centralised accident record broken into types and or air-work catergories may well be useful.

[VeeAny]

Tet

The centralised database is what I've been trying to achieve with the Griffin database, it will never contain everything , I don't think any one database ever will, its too easy for some to slip through the net.

Griffin tends to get US and UK accidents / incidents entered quite soon after they happen, the rest of the world takes a while longer as sometimes I don't find out about them until the accident reports come out. Most of it is automated to the data off the national authorities websites or sometimes straight from them.

A few do get entered with just news reports or links to threads on PPrune or other places on the web.

There is also occasionally some duplication which is why I didn't post a link to it the other day , I spotted one and wanted to remove it before putting a link up, as it turns out the update was done just before widgeon did it.

If any are missed if you let me know I'll put them in.

I've just entered the Springvale mid air, it should appear after the update overnight.

[topendtorque]

VeeAny
roger that.
there's quite a few in the last several pages here.

It may depend just how exhaustive it needs to be I guess and for what reason.

Ab-Initio students need to be taught to be observant, and skeptical and why, (the recent right outside the square titanium bolt saga for example - the second one i mean) but most of the stuff that I talk about I think, is gained at the operational level. Which is only fair as it is not fair to overload the essential basic drills that must be learnt.

Plenty of sages here to voice an opinion, but IMO again that I just don't think that the "safety foundation" concept is getting anywhere. Maybe they have some lists they could publish? after all that is what we hear they have studying.
tet

[ppheli]

Just went back to that research project I mentioned to analyse out the fatal accidents, and found that my previous figure of 67 should have been 73, I had read figure from the wrong column. Here's how it splits out:-

Civil - 48 accidents, 151 fatalities
Military - 25 accidents, 114 fatalities
Total to date - 73 accidents, 265 fatalities

Top 3 Civil
- 12-Mar-09 Cougar S92 - 17
- 01-Apr-09 Bond AS332 - 16
- 16-Feb-09 Chile UH-1 - 14

Top 3 Military
- 03-Jul-09 Pakistan Mi-17 - 26
- 03-May-09 Venezeula Mi-17 - 17
- 15-Jan-09 Afghanistan Mi-17 - 13

VeeAny - these figures are helicopters alone from 01-Jan-09, no fixed wings involved here.

[widgeon]

Man I would hesitate to set foot in a MIL with that enviable record.

[ECAM_Actions]

...look where they are operated. Why did they crash? Always an important question. Afghanistan - shot down?

I hear the fuel isn't too good in Pakistan.

ECAM Actions.

[ecureilx]

Man I would hesitate to set foot in a MIL with that enviable record.


Not at all .. if you see their utilisation figures, and the amount of flying they do .. add in the dangerous areas that they fly in .. where a comparable Western chopper (Puma ?) would cost atleast 3 or 4 times the cost to own and operate ...

Now, if the Americans prefer the natives in Iraq and Afghanistan to use Mils than comparable western products .. that means something I believe .. firstly - the vast pool of trained engineers and pilots and secondly, being rugged and easy to field repair and be made mission ready ..

Agreed that the Mils are nothing but fire-bombs, and have a nasty habit of collapsing their roofs and exploding, especially with their 'outrigger' type fuel tanks .. :mad: :mad:

[MartinCh]

Man I would hesitate to set foot in a MIL with that enviable record.
Hmm. Considering recent crashes or emergencies in NS with AS332, one could say the same about this type, yet praised by many. Whether civy or mil version or EC225. Ditto regarding HEMS crashes in the US past year or two.
All very fine machines, indeed. Not like most Mil choppers. Even as a kid, I liked Jetranger aiframe more than 'flying wardrobes' as someone put it on pprune in the past.

I'd rather mention that Mil-17 are workhorses carrying quite a payload. Fatalities by numbers per accident overshadow others, don't they?