Shell Management
19th Nov 2011, 10:22
The International Helicopter Safety Team was formed in 2005 with the aim of cutting accidents by 80% in 10 years.:ok:
This is the blindly and optimistically positive message that was said after just two years (courtesy of Flight International's reporting):
After stagnating for two decades, US helicopter accident rates fell by 32% and were down 13.7% in the rest of the world in 2006. And a study by Bell Helicopter Textron for the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) says those rates of improvement look to have been sustained through the first half of 2007.
Speaking at the 19-21 September International Helicopter Safety Seminar in Montreal, Bell's head of flight safety, Roy Fox, suggested that the IHST safety improvement programme, designed to reduce the world helicopter accident rate by 80% by 2016, may have played a part in this sudden change. Although none of the early findings of the IHST's Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team (JHSAT), revealed at the Montreal meeting, have yet been implemented, Fox said: "When you start thinking about safety, you get safer. That's my take on it."
But the IHST seems to have stalled as Flight described this week with FAA:yuk:, FlightSafety Inc:yuk: and Sikorsky:yuk: all blaming the operators:
Despite small safety performance improvements after a long period of safety performance stagnation, global helicopter operators are nowhere near on-track to meet the 80% accident-rate reduction target set six years ago, according to figures released at the seminar.
Sikorsky safety specialist Steve Gleason summed up the data-driven conclusions: "We're not finding new ways to crash helicopters. We're just doing the same thing over and over."
Terry Palmer of FlightSafety International told the seminar that there needs to be a radical review of training credits for training carried out in the increasingly improved simulators and flight training devices for helicopters on the market today, because the largest proportion of rotary wing accidents take place during training.
The way to achieve the desired 80% accident rate reduction target by 2016 is "to get the operators to take ownership of the solution", said US Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt in his address to the International Helicopter Safety Seminar in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier this month.
The FAA's IHST representative Sue Gardner says that the main issue now is finding ways to get these messages out to the small operators, which represent more than 80% of the global helicopter industry.
Its now time for the decision makers to step up to the plate, to stop the talk and start the action.:ok:
Its also perhaps time for some of the ineffective IHST leadership:yuk: to step aside and let the more adept and visionary leaders:D, from around the world to take the reigns.
This is the blindly and optimistically positive message that was said after just two years (courtesy of Flight International's reporting):
After stagnating for two decades, US helicopter accident rates fell by 32% and were down 13.7% in the rest of the world in 2006. And a study by Bell Helicopter Textron for the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) says those rates of improvement look to have been sustained through the first half of 2007.
Speaking at the 19-21 September International Helicopter Safety Seminar in Montreal, Bell's head of flight safety, Roy Fox, suggested that the IHST safety improvement programme, designed to reduce the world helicopter accident rate by 80% by 2016, may have played a part in this sudden change. Although none of the early findings of the IHST's Joint Helicopter Safety Analysis Team (JHSAT), revealed at the Montreal meeting, have yet been implemented, Fox said: "When you start thinking about safety, you get safer. That's my take on it."
But the IHST seems to have stalled as Flight described this week with FAA:yuk:, FlightSafety Inc:yuk: and Sikorsky:yuk: all blaming the operators:
Despite small safety performance improvements after a long period of safety performance stagnation, global helicopter operators are nowhere near on-track to meet the 80% accident-rate reduction target set six years ago, according to figures released at the seminar.
Sikorsky safety specialist Steve Gleason summed up the data-driven conclusions: "We're not finding new ways to crash helicopters. We're just doing the same thing over and over."
Terry Palmer of FlightSafety International told the seminar that there needs to be a radical review of training credits for training carried out in the increasingly improved simulators and flight training devices for helicopters on the market today, because the largest proportion of rotary wing accidents take place during training.
The way to achieve the desired 80% accident rate reduction target by 2016 is "to get the operators to take ownership of the solution", said US Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt in his address to the International Helicopter Safety Seminar in Fort Worth, Texas, earlier this month.
The FAA's IHST representative Sue Gardner says that the main issue now is finding ways to get these messages out to the small operators, which represent more than 80% of the global helicopter industry.
Its now time for the decision makers to step up to the plate, to stop the talk and start the action.:ok:
Its also perhaps time for some of the ineffective IHST leadership:yuk: to step aside and let the more adept and visionary leaders:D, from around the world to take the reigns.