Articles for category Safety
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Aug
01
2016
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Posted by Admin
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The United States Helicopter Safety Team (www.ushst.org) will focus major attention during the next four years on reducing fatal accidents within the U.S. civil helicopter community.
The industry-government partnership is targeting a reduction to 0.61 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours, which is 20 percent less than the average since 2009. For a baseline comparison, the USHST is using a fatal accident rate of 0.76. This is the average fatal accident rate for the prior five years that have final and reliable data (2009-10 and 2012-14) derived from the FAA General Aviation Survey.
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Categories:
Safety
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Aug
01
2016
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Posted by Admin
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Modern airborne video surveillance systems enable mission teams to search for objects of interest and observe unfolding events (either overtly or covertly) while recording and reporting what’s being observed. Improvements to a helicopter’s video surveillance system can significantly improve mission effectiveness. Ways to improve the system include:
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Categories:
Training
Safety
Regulatory
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Jul
18
2016
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Posted by Admin
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In the 1960s and ‘70s a disease seemed to strike the airline industry that caused airliners to crash for no known reason. NASA called a “Resource Management on the Flight Deck” workshop that identified human error as the main cause of several high-profile accidents. NASA’s research uncovered that from 1968 to 1976 there were 60 airliners that crashed due to elements of human error. Researching back further through the Boeing archives to 1940, NASA discovered that four out of five accidents—80 percent—had an element of human error. Since that workshop, six generations of CRM have emerged.
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Categories:
Safety
Training
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May
16
2016
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Posted by Admin
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It certainly wasn’t my intention to be on drugs when I addressed FAA regulators at the “Meet the FAA Regulators” session at HAI Heli-Expo 2014. Two hours prior to that talk, I literally couldn’t walk. My back suddenly went out causing excruciating lower back pain, something that occurs every three years or so due to years of competitive tennis and decades in the cockpit. Still, I needed to tell the regulators that they missed a real opportunity to draft meaningful new rules to stop the unacceptable HEMS accident rate. Throwing a mix of over-the-counter painkillers down my throat, I gingerly made my way to the convention center.
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Categories:
Safety
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Mar
14
2016
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Posted by Admin
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I’m going to give you a simple mental tool to keep you safe: Risk Resource Management (RRM). It’s a tool Chesley Sullenberger used for 14 years before he famously landed his Airbus A320 in the Hudson River. It’s also a tool he instructed his students to use when he taught crew resource management at US Airways. It’s a tool you can use in your helicopter to make better decisions, whether you’re flying single-pilot or multicrew.
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Categories:
Training
Safety
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Mar
09
2016
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Posted by Admin
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I love helicopters!
I have a great appreciation for the training and skill it takes to fly a helicopter. Rotorcraft are vital to our transportation system; they have remarkable agility and go where no other transport vehicles can go. They often serve the common good and help our economy by providing medical care, fighting fires, assisting law enforcement, serving as “aerial cranes” in construction, transporting workers to inaccessible locations, and generally doing work that no other vehicles can do.
Helicopters have personal significance for me, too. Before I was born, an American-trained Choctaw CH-34 pilot saved my parents and three older brothers by flying them to safety during the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. One of those brothers, now a surgeon, has been able to help traffic crash victims, thanks to the emergency medical helicopters that transport him to those who are injured far from his Level 1 trauma center.
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Categories:
Safety
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Oct
20
2015
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Posted by Admin
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It’s known as The Graveyard of the Pacific and the infamous name fits. Since records have been kept, its treacherous waves, winds, fog, and currents have claimed more than 2,000 ships and 700 lives. It is where a river intent on disgorging its contents clashes with a massive ocean determined not to yield to the lesser water. A titanic fight ensues in never-ending combat: The river spews out water and sediments while the ocean lashes back, trying to invade the river with a fury that belies its tranquil name. It’s the Columbia River Bar, and it takes a special breed of not only boat pilots—but also helicopter pilots—to safely navigate through this natural war.
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Categories:
Company Profiles
Training
Safety
Helicopter Sectors
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Oct
05
2015
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Posted by Admin
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Has anyone ever said to you, “But we’ve always done it this way”? It’s a complacency trap that once held the potential for dire consequences for five of us employed as HEMS pilots for the king of Saudi Arabia.
I was new to the organization, standing on the bridge of the king’s yacht with the chief pilot. We were both looking half a mile away through binoculars as he explained the approach to the hospital helipad. “You’ll fly to the waypoint listed “WALL” in the GPS, which is the wall at the edge of the palace grounds. Once you reach it, you’ll make a left 90-degree dogleg turn, keeping those five construction cranes on your right while staying well clear of that big unlit stadium on your left. See it?”
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Categories:
Training
Safety
Human Interest
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Sep
21
2015
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Posted by Admin
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Myth 1: Enhanced vision systems (EVS) have only one application.
Many aircraft owners or operators believe that EVS only applies to operations during periods of darkness. However, enhanced vision systems provide increased situational awareness during day, night, NVG, IFR, firefighting, aerial application, EMS, SAR, ALE, and ISR flight operations. Most flight operations occur during periods of reduced visibility that are associated with obscurations such as fog, smoke, haze, dust, snow, precipitation, or low levels of illumination. All of these can be contributing factors when it comes to possible IIMC or CFIT incidents. EVS helps in mitigating these factors by allowing pilots to see clearly.
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Categories:
Career Development
Training
Safety
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Jul
20
2015
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Posted by Admin
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The problem with communication is the perception that it’s been achieved.
—George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright
Boy, was ol’ George right. Communication is central to effective crew resource management. An ambiguous message, whether written or spoken, can lead to fatal consequences. With that thought in mind, one would think airline executives, when drafting memos to flight crews, would take great pains to avoid ambiguity at all cost. Apparently, they don’t. Consider the following 1996 memo distributed to pilots at British Airways in an effort to clarify new pilot role titles:
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Categories:
Training
Safety
Career Development