The EuropeanHelicopter Safety Team (EHEST) has released today its preliminary analysisreport on helicopter accidents occurred in EASA Member States between 2000 and 2005. Analysis is the first step towards reducing the helicopter accident rate by80% by 2016, an objective stated by the International HelicopterSafety Team. To reach this objective, EHSAT, the EuropeanHelicopter Safety Analysis Team, was formed with the purpose of identifyingsafety issues and intervention recommendations. The report presents the resultsof 186 accidents where a final investigation report has been issued by the responsibleAccident Investigation Board.
Of the accidentsanalysed so far, 72 involve General Aviation operations, 66 AerialWork, 40 Commercial Air Transport, and 8 State Flights.
68% of the fatalaccidents and 34% of all accidents analysed by EHSAT occurred during the enroute phase of flight. In 33% of the accidents, the pilot had less than 1,000hours total helicopter experience. In 26% of the accidents, the pilot had lessthan 100 hours flight experience on the helicopter type involved in theaccident. However, accidents also occurred to very experienced pilots.
The accidentanalysis aims at identifying all factors, causal or contributory, that played arole in the accidents.The top three identified areas are Pilotjudgment and actions, Safety Management andSafety Culture, and Pilot situation awareness. Different patternswere observed for Commercial Air Transport, Aerial Work and General Aviation.
To tackle thevariety of languages used in accident reportsand optimise the use of resources, EHSAT has established nine regional analysisteams across Europe. Regional analyses are consolidatedat European level. This initiative is unique in its efforts to conduct aEuropean wide analysis of helicopter accidents.
EHSAT derived suggestionsfor safety enhancement, called intervention recommendations, from the analyses.Most of these address training and instruction, flight operations, Safety Management and Safety Culture, as well as regulations and standards.The EHSAT intervention recommendations are currently being processed by theEuropean Helicopter Safety Implementation Team (EHSIT) launched on 5 February2009.
EHEST isactively seeking new participants and all who are interested in taking part inthis safety-enhancing work are encouraged to contact the EHEST secretariat.
The preliminary results published in this report were originally presented in the EHEST 2008 Conference at Cascais, Portugal, on 13 October 2008, and in the 2nd EASA Rotorcraft Symposium, Cologne, Germany, on 4 December 2008.
EHEST was created in 2006 as one of the three components of the European Strategic Safety Initiative (ESSI). It brings together major helicopter airframe, engine and systems manufacturers, operators, regulators, helicopter and pilots associations, research organisations, accident investigators from across Europe and some military helicopter operators. More than 50 organisations participate in EHEST to date, of which around 30 are involved in the EHSAT.
ESSI is an aviation safety partnership between the European Aviation Safety Agency, other regulators and industry with the objective to further enhance safety for citizens in Europe and worldwide. The other two components of ESSI are the European Commercial Aviation Safety Team (ECAST) and the European General Aviation Safety Team (EGAST). For more information on ESSI click here.
EHEST is also the European component of the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) whose objective is to reduce helicopter accident rate by 80% by 2016. For more information on IHST click here
Dr. Daniel Höltgen, Communications Manager
Tel.: + 49 (221) 89990 2002 - Fax: + 49 (221) 89990 2502Elisabeth Schöffmann, Press Officer
Tel.: + 49 (221) 89990 2025
