Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing November 2022
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for November 2022 (second 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 Nov Totals: 6 accidents, 1 fatal accident, 2 fatalities The single fatal accident during the month involved an electronic news gathering helicopter and was the first to occur in this industry segment in over 5 years. FY23 Summary FY23 Totals: 14 accidents, 2 fatal accidents, 3 fatalities From both a count and rate perspective, the first 2 months of FY23 have shown large percentage improvements over the same period from the previous FY and the 5 year average. Accidents (include both fatal & non-fatal accidents): - The FY23 estimated accident rate for Oct-Nov was 3.06 per 100K hours (20% lower than same period in FY22, 13% lower than 5 year average for same period). - Only two industry segments had more than a single accident during the first two months of FY23. These were Personal/Private (5 events, 36% of total) and Instructional/Training (4 events, 29% of total). All events in these 2 categories were non-fatal. Fatal Accidents: - The FY23 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Nov was 0.44 per 100K hours (35% lower than same period in FY22, 50% lower than 5 year average for same period). - Through 2 months in the FY, the number of helicopter accidents with a fatality is at 14%. The percentage would be the lowest since FY17 if it continued through the duration of FY23. - There were not any personal/private helicopter fatal accidents during Oct-Nov, noteworthy since that segment has consistently accounted for 20-30% of fatal accidents in recent years. Fatalities: - The FY23 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Nov was 0.66 per 100K hours (27% lower than same period in FY22, 57% lower than 5 year average for same period). - The three or less fatalities for Oct-Nov is only the third time in the last 10 FYs this has occurred and only the eighth time in the last 41 FYs. 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 0.78 per 100K hours through Oct 2022. - For the 5th consecutive month (July – November) only 1 fatal accident occurred during the month. As was true last month for July – October, this was the first time this has occurred for the 40 calendar years of U.S. helicopter accident data on record. Lee Roskop Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723 Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division 817-222-5337 lee.roskop@faa.gov
