National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) vice chairman Christopher Hart and a panel of industry and government experts shared “lessons learned from helicopter accidents” at a wide-ranging panel discussion at Heli-Expo yesterday. Topics discussed included maintenance, simulation and training and the advantages on-board video and data recorders provide in accident investigations.
“There are some bad [accident] numbers here,” Hart said. “They include [since 2004], 102 air medical flights, 54 air tours and 360 instructional flights. That’s why we’ve put helicopter safety on our ‘most wanted’ list and have issued more than 100 recommendations during that time that are helicopter-specific. That’s what we do. And we are happy to say our recommendations have resulted in a lot of improvements, including addition to the tour operators safety program and better inspection procedures being instituted by the manufacturers.”
