FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - March
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for March 2022 (6th month of FY22).
Reminder: We are in the process of moving from the traditional powerpoint summary to a pdf of a new rotorcraft accident dashboard. In the short term, I will continue to provide both documents as attachments. Over time, we plan to transition away from the legacy powerpoint slides and will only include the pdf of the dashboard.
Monthly Summary
Totals: 11 accidents, 2 fatal accidents, 4 fatalities
- Similar to February, accidents during March were distributed among at least 7 different industry sectors. Personal/Private had 3 accidents, Law Enforcement and Instructional/Training each had 2 accidents and several others had 1 each.
- For the 2 fatal accidents during the month, one was a Personal/Private helicopter and the other was Instructional/Training.
Cumulative FY22 Summary, Oct-Mar
FY22, Totals: 52 accidents, 13 fatal accidents, 23 fatalities
Accidents:
- The Oct-Mar, estimated accident rate was 3.74 per 100K hours.
- Compared to the same time period in FY21, the FY22 Oct-Mar accident rate was up 14%. Compared to the 5 year average for the same time frame it is up 12%.
- Personal/Private continues to lead all industry sectors in accounting for 21% of the accidents. Other industries with higher percentages include Instructional/Training with 17%, Law Enforcement with 12%, and Helicopter Air Ambulance with 12%.
Fatal Accidents:
- The Oct-Mar estimated fatal accident rate was 0.93 per 100K hours, decreasing slightly from 0.98 observed Oct – Feb.
- Compared to the same time period in FY21, the FY22 Oct-Mar fatal accident rate was up 152%. Compared to the 5 year average for the same time frame it is up 27%.
- The 13 fatal accidents in the first 6 months of FY22 are tied for 4th highest over the last 20 years and tied for 2nd highest in the last 10 years.
- There has been at least 1 fatal accident per month for the last 14 months. This is the longest number of consecutive months with a fatal accident since early FY14 when 18 consecutive months elapsed with at least 1 fatal accident per month.
- Personal/Private has accounted for 6 fatal accidents so far in the FY, 46% of the overall total. It is one of only two industry sectors with more than one fatal accident. The other is Instructional/Training with 2 fatal accidents (15% of overall total).
- The percentage of accidents with a fatality remained at 25% so continues trending in a tie for the highest in the past 20 years if the percentage does not decrease before the end of the FY.
Fatalities:
- The FY22 estimated fatality rate through February was 1.65 per 100K hours.
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 2018-2022 5 year average fatal accident rate was 0.8 per 100K hours through March 2022.
Lee Roskop
Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723
Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division
817-222-5337
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