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FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - November

Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for November 2024 (second month of FY25).

(Covers Part 27, Part 29, and Restricted Category rotorcraft accidents to U.S. registered aircraft. Does not include gyrocopters or experimental aircraft.)

 

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

November Totals:  6 accidents, 2 fatal accidents, 4 fatalities

- The 6 accidents during the month were distributed across 5 different industry segments. External Load was the only segment with more than 1 accident.

- One of the two fatal accidents that occurred during the month was to a U.S. registered helicopter operating outside the U.S. (in Australia) and supporting firefighting.

 

FY25 Summary

FY25 Totals:  14 accidents, 4 fatal accidents, 11 fatalities

 

Accidents (includes both fatal & non-fatal accidents):

- The FY25 estimated accident rate for Oct-Nov was 2.9 per 100K hours (20% lower than the same period in FY24 and 14% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).

 

Fatal Accidents:

- The FY25 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Nov was 0.83 per 100K hours (94% higher than the same period in FY24 and 71% higher than the 5 year average for the same period).

 

Fatalities:

- The FY25 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Nov was 2.28 per 100K hours (256% higher than the same period in FY24, 223% higher than the 5 year average for the same period).

- 29% of all accidents that occurred Oct-Nov had a fatality (long term historical average for previous years is 17%).

 

U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) Calendar Year Metrics

The FAA finalized the results of the calendar year 2023 General Aviation and Part 135 Activity Survey. The estimate for total U.S. helicopter hours in 2023 was 2,906,790 hours.

- This was an increase of 49,790 hours (1.7%) over the FAA’s original forecast of 2,857,000 hours.

- The increase in flight hours led to a slight decrease (improvement) in the USHST’s rates for 2023.

- Thank you to all owners/operators who participated in the 2023 survey!

 

The USHST includes only helicopter accidents that meet the following criteria:

1. U.S. registered aircraft

2. Operating in the U.S./U.S. territories (includes offshore)

- USHST 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 (0.58 per 100K hours, revised from 0.62) as their baseline for measurement.

- The CY 2020-2024 5 year average fatal accident rate was 0.63 per 100K hours through Nov 2024.

 

Lee Roskop

Aviation Safety Coordinator (Rotorcraft)

Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723

Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division

817-222-5337

 

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