FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - March
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for March 2023 (sixth 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
Mar Totals: 14 accidents, 4 fatal accidents, 11 fatalities
- For the third time in the last 10 FYs, 4 fatal accidents occurred during March. It was the eighth time in the past 41 FYs that 4 or more fatal accidents occurred during March.
- Of the 4 fatal accidents during the month, one was a U.S. registered helicopter operating outside the U.S. (Philippines). The event accounted for 5 of the 11 fatalities that occurred in March.
- Industry segments observing a fatal accident during the month were Personal/Private (2), Law Enforcement (1), and the Helicopter Air Ambulance operation in the Philippines (1).
FY23 Summary
FY23 Totals: 43 accidents, 8 fatal accidents, 19 fatalities
- All count and rate metrics for the six month period of Oct – Mar showed improvement when measured against the same period for both the previous FY and the 5 year average.
- Events occurring in March resulted in the fatal accident total for the FY doubling from what had been observed Oct – Feb (from 4 events Oct – Feb to 8 events Oct – Mar). Similarly the fatalities more than doubled (from 8 fatalities Oct – Feb to 19 fatalities Oct – Mar).
Accidents (include both fatal & non-fatal accidents):
- The FY23 estimated accident rate for Oct-Mar was 3.39 per 100K hours (16% lower than same period in FY22, 3% lower than 5 year average for same period).
- The count of 43 total accidents for the first 6 months of the FY was the fifth lowest for that time period for the 41 years on record.
Fatal Accidents:
- The FY23 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Mar was 0.63 per 100K hours (39% lower than same period in FY22, 22% lower than 5 year average for same period).
- The count of 8 fatal accidents for the first 6 months of the FY was the sixth lowest for that time period for the 41 years on record.
Fatalities:
- The FY23 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Mar was 1.5 per 100K hours (18% lower than same period in FY22, and also 18% 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 0.76 per 100K hours through Mar 2023.
Lee Roskop
Acting Manager, Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723
Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division
817-222-5337
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