The Media "Good Safety Record"
 

After yesterday's dreadful and devastating news, I keep hearing the same thing from the media...

"The Lynx helicopter is considered to have an extremely good safety record"

...does it really? I would say it is like any other. Have a look at Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety WikiBase > ASN Aviation Safety Database results

I count a 101 fatalities in Lynx over its 42 years. On average, considering they normally carry 5 persons, then that is 1 fatal accident every 2 years for the type.

There are 78 accidents where the Lynx was written off in the above link (I'm guessing that is Cat4/5 equivalent?). I also remember seeing a Lynx laying its side between KAF and LKG in 2008 in the desert - that's not in this database. However, 78 accidents in 42 years is nearly 2 per year - to me that's not "an extremely good safety record" and I woukd say it was decidely "average"!

Come on media 'experts' - get it right!

iRaven

iRaven, you have drawn conclusions from the top level stats which do not reflect the true status. I have not read every record, but a random dip into those listed include ones damaged by hail, captured by insurgents in Libya, was on board a frigate that sank, was on board a destroyer that sank, destroyed by fire on the Atlantic Conveyor, ran out of fuel. Others just say crashed so there is no indication if it was a technical problem.
Perhaps if you care to analyse all the records and research those where information is scarce you could give an accurate figure for those that could be attributed to the design and manufacture. Otherwise your conclusion could be seen as dubious as you are suggesting the media are guilty of.

Hi, iRaven - this was the first accident involving an upgraded Lynx AH9A, which has put on a lot of hours under tough conditions in Afghan. That at least is a pretty good safety record, IMHO.

iRaven, perhaps you (and some others) should offer your services to the BBC etc. You seem to know so much about it.

I suppose the real question is if tuc has approved the safety case.

All valid points, but even if half that which I first explained (and the fatality figures are as they are stated), it can hardly he crowed about as an 'extremely good safety record'. I also believe the one on its side in 2008 was an AH9 - one of the first to go to theatre.

Please don't think I'm cussing the Lynx and its crews, it's just the "extremely good safety record" that is intriguing me by the media.

iRaven

Raven does have a point, if only in highlighting the lazy reporting inflicted on anything to do with aviation. Particularly when contrasted with their treatment of the super-puma. Even though it flies day in day out over the oggin often in brutal conditions, it suffers five accidents and it's a death trap!

I can only speak for the AAC aircraft over the past 15years..

23-APR-2013 Westland Lynx British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Kandahar Airfield

Weather damage (Hail)

01-DEC-2011 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ210 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 near Tatenhausen, Halle (Westfalen)

Servicing error/SOAP sample error

18-MAR-2007 Westland Lynx AH7 ZD276 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland

Pilot Error

06-MAY-2006 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ614 Royal Marines Commando 5 Basra

Enemy Action

21-FEB-2005 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ646 Royal Marines Commando 0 Modrinja, near Sarajevo

Wire Strike.

09-SEP-2004 Westland Lynx AH9 ZE382 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 6 Namest nad Oslavou, 19 mi W of Brn

Wire Strike.

19-SEP-2001 Westland Lynx AH9 ZG922 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Omani desert

Pilot error during dust take off at night.

23-FEB-2001 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ664 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire

Mechanical failure/Tail Rotor

17-APR-2000 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ207 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Boxberg

Mechanical Failure/tail rotor

02-MAR-2000 Westland Lynx AH7 XZ662 British Army Air Corps (AAC) 0 Mullaghbawn, Northern Ireland

Enemy Action.


The obvious two TR incidents stick out…..but what about the rest?

Sprucemoose is right, the Mk9A has been working hard with no incident thus far.

If you went down the list and stripped out all of the non-tech faults and took account for the way in which military aircraft are operated. Apart from a period in the 90's it has performed well.

Hardly a surprise when the design has been around so long.

Your numbers cover 415 Lynx of all types built, over 42 years service from both land and sea.



One example is the Netherlands - they operated 24 Lynx from 1976-2012, for more than 160,000 combined flight hours. 4 of their Lynx were destroyed.

Two were lost at sea on night missions in 1982 (and thus likely controlled flight into the water, not mechanical failure).

The other two were written off with no fatalities - one in 1998 from an engine fire and one on 10 March 2011 in combat in Lybia - this was not destroyed, but was returned to the Netherlands in August 2012 and scrapped.



If you actually look at comparable military helicopters over the same period (if that's not too much work), you will find that the Lynx does indeed have at least an average, if not better than average, safety record when compared to any other generally similar design.


This is not to say that there couldn't be improvements - the Lynx has a ~33 per million flight hours incident of tail rotor failure (about half of which were caused by the rotor hitting an object, not by mechanical failure) - compared to ~24 for the Puma, ~23 for the Sea King, and ~20 for the AH-1 Cobra and SH-2 SeaSprite.

Data from http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_01.PDF

Neither Raven nor anyone else is dissing the Lynx as far as I can tell, green knight, but why have you chosen to consider only technical failures in your analysis? A safety record is a safety record and only a small minority of accidents these days result directly and solely from technical reasons.

I don't want to speak for GreenKnight, but I'm guessing he's only considered technical failures because those are the only types of failures that reflect the safety of a particular machine. If a Lynx is shot down, or the pilot flies it into wires/rolls on landing/etc, then it can hardly be attributed to an inherent fault with the airframe (which was the implication of iRaven's OP about the Lynx's safety record).

I don't see any relevance in this statement; in flying AH1, AH1(GT), 7 and 9 I've had anywhere between 1, and 11 plus a dog onboard at any one time.

Could it be that from a Media point of view, the Lynx doesn't appear to have a "bad" safety record as it's not always in the news for those reasons, so it must therefore be "good"?

To achieve a reasonable idea of safety level, you have to compare total accidents in a set periond with the number of sorties - not easy with a helicopter.

Not wanting to get bogged down in semantics but this statement is misleading. If you are considering that a 'technical failure' is defined as some equipment or system not meeting its design intent then these are certainly not 'the only types of failures that reflect the safety of a particular machine'

An aircraft can be perfectly serviceable but have inherent design flaws that can lead to aircrew interacting with the environment in a way that ultimately leads to a crash. These could be issues related to unacceptable workload, mode confusion, inadequate or inappropriately displayed flight parameters amongst many others. Consequently, every incident should be considered part of the safety record until an external and ultimately unavoidable cause to the crash has been determined.

Even enemy action can't be discounted if part of the safety requirements are the proper functioning of DASS and any protective survivability aspects have been considered e.g. inerting fuel tanks for small arms fire etc.

I'm just saying its more complicated than technical failures.

atg:-
Nice to know there is one for a change. Cheap shot alfred.

Not really. Tuc bangs on about safety cases as if they were the sine qua non of military aviation. They are an important part, but not critical.

SafeAsHouses. You joined in 2007 and have written just one post - that's some serious lurking ;-).

As someone occasionally on the wrong end of media requests about safety records in my own (far less interesting) industry, I suspect P6 Driver has nailed it.

melmoth, if only some other posters (self included) maintained such a good ratio of well-considered posts to lurking:)

P6, yes, and this was, I believe exactly the OP's intent, i.e. to highlight lazy journalism rather than imply any inherent fault with the Lynx.