23-Aug-2010 Source: HeliHub.com
HeliHub.com maintains what we believe to be the most comprehensive record of helicopter accidents and incidents on the internet. From this month onwards, we will produce montly summary reports, and we will also continue to produce our very comprehensive annual report.
Useful Links
* Fatal Accidents – both civil and military
* 2009 Annual Review of Fatal Accidents
July 2010 was not a good month for helicopter accidents, and we recorded 59 accidents. Of these, 20 were fatal (13 civil, 7 military) involving 51 people deceased (28 Civil from civilian accidents, 23 military) – compare these figures to the average in 2009 was 12 fatal accidents and 39 fatalities per month. In recent months we have noticed two particular trends
* Accidents caused by contact with wires
* Bell 206 (and OH-58) in agricultural operations in the US
Our July reports investigated incidents from the following countries
*Afghanistan
* Austria
* Bolivia
* Brazil
* Canada
* France
* Greece
* Honduras
* Hong Kong
* India
* Iraq
* Japan
* Malaysia
* Mexico
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* Solomon Islands
* South Africa
* UK
* Ukraine
* Uruguay
* USA
HeliHub.com aims to record every helicopter accident and incident that happens. Our approach is that anything in the following categories is valid to be listed on our site – we look for reports of
* damage of a helicopter
* damage of property caused by the operation of a helicopter
* injury to persons caused by the operation of a helicopter
* precautionary or emergency landings, ie where the pilot considers safety would be compromised by further flight
* situations which lead to take-offs being abandoned
There are one or two “grey areas” where we do not file accident reports on our site, and a good example are those news stories where law enforcement agencies have had their helicopter targeted by a laser pen during night operations, but this has not led to the pilot in command declaring an emergency and electing to land as soon as possible. Further, there are a number of safety-related issues found on the ground during maintenance or pre-flight inspection which do not lead to publicly-accessible reports being filed on the internet.
