FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - January
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for January 2023 (fourth month of FY23).
**Please access the information from this briefing directly anytime at the FAA’s publicly available, Rotorcraft Accident Dashboard.**
Find “Dashboard Navigation” near the top of the default page and click either “Historical Briefing” or “Make Model Breakdown” for access to all 3 pages of visualized and interactive data.
Monthly Summary
Jan Totals: 2 accidents, 0 fatal accidents, 0 fatalities
- Barring any late arriving accident reports, the 2 accidents in January were the lowest monthly accident total for any month of the 41 FYs on record.
- Previously, the lowest number of accidents observed in any FY month was 3. This had only occurred four times: once in FY14, once in FY17, and twice in FY19.
- For the second time in the last 3 FYs, there were not any fatal accidents/fatalities during the month of January.
FY23 Summary
FY23 Totals: 27 accidents, 4 fatal accidents, 8 fatalities
- All count and rate metrics for the four month period of Oct – Jan showed improvement when measured against the same period for both the previous FY and the 5 year average.
Accidents (include both fatal & non-fatal accidents):
- The FY23 estimated accident rate for Oct-Jan was 3.33 per 100K hours (15% lower than same period in FY22, 7% lower than 5 year average for same period).
Fatal Accidents:
- The FY23 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Jan was 0.49 per 100K hours (50% lower than same period in FY22, 44% lower than 5 year average for same period).
Fatalities:
- The FY23 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Jan was 0.99 per 100K hours (38% lower than same period in FY22, 48% lower than 5 year average for same period).
U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) Calendar Year Metrics
- Goal: Reduce the 5 year average fatal accident rate to 0.55 per 100K hours by 2025. The USHST uses the 5 year average fatal accident rate from CYs 2014-2018 (0.62 per 100K hours) as their baseline for measurement.
- The CY 2019-2023 5 year average fatal accident rate was 0.75 per 100K hours through Jan 2023.
Lee Roskop
Acting Manager, Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723
Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division
817-222-5337
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