jim63
8th Apr 2011, 16:49
Upper Limit Aviation, based in Utah, is under fire after a student was injured in a hard landing yesterday. The R22 was being flown by both an instructor and student when the engine failed. They came down hard, spreading the skids and slicing the tail boom. The student suffered a minor head injury and, luckily, that was the extent of injuries.
This incident, in and of itself, would not be unusual except that the school has had a string of similar events, specifically, seven within seven years. It was only a month ago that I covered a story about them crashing a 206. During that incident the flight school denied that it was an instructional flight despite it being labeled exactly that by the FAA. The story gets even more interesting when you hear about their ex-maintenance director claiming that the owners wanted him to falsify records. In one instance, the ex-employee said that one of the owners crashed an R44 and wanted him to drain some fuel out of it before investigators arrived. Presumably, he requested that to avoid being blamed for it being overweight and consequently operator error.
How does Upper Limit respond to those accusations? Well, they deny them of course and call him a disgruntled former employee. The reality here though is that the school has had more accidents than any other in Utah within the time frame, according to ksl.com. That sort of data point is irrelevant though, what’s important is what is the rate of accidents per hours flown and I don’t know those numbers. All I see is that ULA claims their accident rate is low compared to six per 100,000 hours. If ksl.com’s claim that they have had seven accidents in seven years is accurate, let’s see how those numbers add up.
To achieve a rate of six per 100k over the course of seven years you’d need to average 14,286 hours per year or 39 flight hours per day. It isn’t clear exactly how big their fleet is and most don’t seem to actually be registered to ULA specifically, if you try to look them up in the FAA registry. Have they been averaging 39 hours a day for the last seven years? I wish they would release more specific numbers to back up their claim. The FAA has said they will be giving ULA extra attention due to the accident rate and so far have not ordered any sanctions or penalties. Perhaps this is all just a string of bad luck for this school and, let’s face it, averages and trending numbers can always have a spike that cannot be explained.
Upper Limit has posted the below on their website with regard to this recent accident:
Today, at 12:10 PM an Upper Limit Aviation aircraft experienced a loss of power while in the traffic pattern at South Valley Regional Airport. The pilot executed an emergency landing, and the aircraft sustained what appears to be substantial damage. There are no injuries, and both passengers are OK. FAA has been notified.(source: ulaheli.com (http://www.ulaheli.com/news.php?v=16))
I’m a little confused about why they said there weren’t any injuries when several news outlets say that the student was treated for a minor head injury. Just because it was minor doesn’t mean there wasn’t any injury at all. I think what they meant to write was that there were no “serious” injuries.
Well, let’s hope the FAA gets to the bottom of whatever is going on with that school. I received a flood of emails and tips about this accident and nobody speaks favorably about their operation. I invite the owners of ULA to contact me and hopefully send the actual numbers associated with their accident rates. My contact info is in the right-hand column of the site.
Safe flights everyone!
You can read even more info here: ksl.com story (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=15041976)
ULA Hard Landing Raises Concerns | VTOLBLOG (http://vtolblog.com/?p=4510)
http://vtolblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ULA_hardlanding_1.jpg
This incident, in and of itself, would not be unusual except that the school has had a string of similar events, specifically, seven within seven years. It was only a month ago that I covered a story about them crashing a 206. During that incident the flight school denied that it was an instructional flight despite it being labeled exactly that by the FAA. The story gets even more interesting when you hear about their ex-maintenance director claiming that the owners wanted him to falsify records. In one instance, the ex-employee said that one of the owners crashed an R44 and wanted him to drain some fuel out of it before investigators arrived. Presumably, he requested that to avoid being blamed for it being overweight and consequently operator error.
How does Upper Limit respond to those accusations? Well, they deny them of course and call him a disgruntled former employee. The reality here though is that the school has had more accidents than any other in Utah within the time frame, according to ksl.com. That sort of data point is irrelevant though, what’s important is what is the rate of accidents per hours flown and I don’t know those numbers. All I see is that ULA claims their accident rate is low compared to six per 100,000 hours. If ksl.com’s claim that they have had seven accidents in seven years is accurate, let’s see how those numbers add up.
To achieve a rate of six per 100k over the course of seven years you’d need to average 14,286 hours per year or 39 flight hours per day. It isn’t clear exactly how big their fleet is and most don’t seem to actually be registered to ULA specifically, if you try to look them up in the FAA registry. Have they been averaging 39 hours a day for the last seven years? I wish they would release more specific numbers to back up their claim. The FAA has said they will be giving ULA extra attention due to the accident rate and so far have not ordered any sanctions or penalties. Perhaps this is all just a string of bad luck for this school and, let’s face it, averages and trending numbers can always have a spike that cannot be explained.
Upper Limit has posted the below on their website with regard to this recent accident:
Today, at 12:10 PM an Upper Limit Aviation aircraft experienced a loss of power while in the traffic pattern at South Valley Regional Airport. The pilot executed an emergency landing, and the aircraft sustained what appears to be substantial damage. There are no injuries, and both passengers are OK. FAA has been notified.(source: ulaheli.com (http://www.ulaheli.com/news.php?v=16))
I’m a little confused about why they said there weren’t any injuries when several news outlets say that the student was treated for a minor head injury. Just because it was minor doesn’t mean there wasn’t any injury at all. I think what they meant to write was that there were no “serious” injuries.
Well, let’s hope the FAA gets to the bottom of whatever is going on with that school. I received a flood of emails and tips about this accident and nobody speaks favorably about their operation. I invite the owners of ULA to contact me and hopefully send the actual numbers associated with their accident rates. My contact info is in the right-hand column of the site.
Safe flights everyone!
You can read even more info here: ksl.com story (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=15041976)
ULA Hard Landing Raises Concerns | VTOLBLOG (http://vtolblog.com/?p=4510)
http://vtolblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/ULA_hardlanding_1.jpg