HeliHub.com has recently been trialling a second Twitter feed for the accident and incident data provided on the website and is today formally launching this to the industry.  This is the next development in what we already provide by way of accident/incident data, and we believe we have the most comprehensive record available online.  We cover every relevant event reported on the internet that we can find, typically a good proportion more than the established “Aviation Safety” type sites.

Check our new Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/helihub_safety

Our priority is to get these events promptly filed on HeliHub.com and we edit the report later if more information becomes available – typically the registration of the helicopter is not immediately available and is the most likely “added later” detail.  The Twitter feed provides the link to the latest version of the reports, but the original report title.

In the last month we have also started a monthly safety data analysis article, and the review of July 2010 noted that we covered 59 accidents, of which 20 were fatal resulting in 51 lives lost.  This monthly report adds further weight to our safety data reporting.

Our approach to accident and incident data is as follows – five particular categories which lead us to report:-
* 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

This does mean that some “precautionary landings” which result in an engineer call-out, but no damage ot the helicopter, will be included.  It also means that most incidents of lasers being shone at helicopters are not in this category, unless the report specifically states that a precautionary landing was made.

The website’s first Twitter feed http://twitter.com/helihub already provides every news headline on the site moments after the story is filed.  A typical month sees 270-300 stories, and this figure is rising as we scour the globe for helicopter industry news.  We are already confident that we provide a wider range of stories than any other industry news website.

HeliHub.com owner Jeremy Parkin has a long history in the research of helicopter data across the globe. Starting in 1983, he maintained a very detailed database of every helicopter in the UK, and this data was well received and widely used to market products and services to helicopter owners and operators alike. From 1987 the decision was made to expand this to cover all of Europe, and by 1991 the database was global and numbered over 100,000 airframes of both civil and military helicopter types. This data was widely marketed and sold to civil and military organisations across the world. Mr Parkin has had six helicopter books published, including five annual volumes of the most comprehensive civil helicopter directory based on the aforementioned database.  Mr Parkin launched the helicopter industry’s first news website in 1999, and purchased HeliHub.com on 1st January 2010. The HeliHub.com team maintain and build the various sections of the site, and a number of new features of the site are planned for launch over the coming months.