One of my assignments here at AIN is compiling and editing the Accidents page for our flagship monthly magazine, Aviation International News. Each month I comb through reports on the NTSB website and others, looking for those accidents that I think will be of value and interest to our readers. Unfortunately, I cannot include them all because of space constraints.
As I search the websites each month, I’ve noticed a lot of helicopter accidents. Most involve the usual causes: mechanical failure or training problems. Wire strikes are also fairly common, but in some of the accidents, you can almost see the moment when complacency crept in along with inattentiveness and/or an unhealthy underestimation of the hazards associated with rotorcraft operations. The helicopter is a complex and unforgiving machine and from some of these accident reports, one can certainly infer that bad things will happen if it is not respected.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
