The current certification specifications relating to the certification of rotorcraft hoists do not provide sufficient clarity on what is required to achieve certification and are not being appropriately applied. In addition, some failure modes are not consistently taken into consideration, and this is reflected in in-service experience. A significant number of safety occurrences have been reported that are attributed to rotorcraft hoist issues.
Improved industry standards that are being developed will address some of the existing design shortfalls that have been identified. This rulemaking task (RMT) will consider how best to integrate these industry standards into the certification specifications for rotorcraft hoists. The improvements in the standards relating to the certification of rotorcraft are expected to significantly reduce the risk of catastrophic accidents in human external cargo operations.