High death rate of commercial helicopter pilots sparks scathing attack from Civil Aviation director

Thursday, 20 December 2018

A CAA report found that the 23 commercial helicopter fatalities recorded over the past five years made up 80 per cent of total commercial aviation fatalities. Commercial helicopter operations were the fifth most dangerous work place after agriculture, forestry, construction, and transport postal and warehousing.

Civil Aviation Authority director Graeme Harris has made a scathing attack on safety standards in the commercial helicopter industry, saying its pilots have a workplace death rate 75 times the national average.

His comments, which are strongly disputed by Aviation New Zealand, were made in the wake of an interim Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) report into a fatal Wanaka crash caused by a pair of trousers flying out an open door and tangling in the tail rotor.

In an email newsletter to industry members yesterday Harris said that over the last decade, 16 of the 29 employee deaths in commercial aviation involved helicopters.

He said that based on figures from 2011 to 2017, the fatality rate for commercial helicopter pilots per 1000 workers on an annual basis was 75 times the national average for all workplaces, compared with 44 times the average for forestry, which was the next worst workplace

Helicopter trips are a popular with tourists, especially as shrinking glaciers become inaccessible on foot. For the year to September helicopter transport operations had 2 accidents per 100,000 flying hours, compared with 6.6 for the agricultural sector.

* Helicopter plummeted 300m, creating a metre-deep hole in the ground

* Report highlights 'serious safety issue' with helicopter that crashed near Porirua

The Service for Nick Wallis was held at Wanaka Airport in October following the fatal helicopter crash that killed 3 people. An initial investigation blamed a pair of trousers flying out an open door and tangling in the rotor.

* DOC to review aerial control procedures in wake of fatal helicopter crash**

Harris said he was publicising the statistics to raise awareness of the problem and what could be done about it.

'Sadly, the high rate of work-related harm in the sector doesn't seem to have a particularly high profile with the public, the media, the customers of helicopter operators or even in the sector itself.

'I'm confident that will change. The CAA's efforts to improve helicopter safety will step up considerably in coming months.'

Aviation New Zealand chief executive John Nicholson said there was no disagreement over the need to improve helicopter safety, but the CAA figures were misleading.

They assumed a total helicopter industry work force of 1100, but with 131 commercial operators flying more than 500 choppers, employee numbers including ground crew and office staff were likely to be at least four times that, he said.

The rates for all helicopters had been trending down over the past three years and were now at 1.13 fatalities and 6.29 accidents per 100,000 hours flown.

Flights were rising rapidly and private and commercial helicopters were set to chalk up 253,000 flying hours this year which included everything from logistical support for building projects, to farming activities, fire fighting and aerial surveys.

The tourism industry increasingly used helicopters to transport visitors into remote locations and was worried about the impact Harris comments would have on safety conscious overseas markets, Nicholson said.

Yet helicopter air transport operations, such as glacier tours, had the lowest accident rate of 2 per 100,000 hours.

Helicopters are expected to fly 253,000 hours this year ranging from transport flights to search and rescue operations, such as this one where an American tourist was winched to safety after falling 60m near Lake Clearwater.

Harris said improving safety would require buy-in and cooperation by helicopter operators, their workers, worker unions, organisations contracting helicopter operators, and the CAA, and improving incident reporting was a priority.

The TAIC report on the Wanaka crash that killed pilot Nick Wallis and Department of Conservation workers Paul Hondelink and Scott Theobald pointed out that the company had failed to report three recent incidents involving doors on the helicopter opening in flight.

It asked CAA to urgently remind aviation operators of the importance of notifying incidents so they could be investigated to prevent further similar problems in future.

The CAA newsletter restated its commitment to a 'just culture' in relation to reporting, but said that operators would not be protected from prosecution if they did not 'self-report' incidents or there was evidence of reckless or repeated at-risk behaviours.

Nicholson said his organisation encouraged incident reporting, but fear of prosecution was still strong in some quarters, and there were concerns CAA mislaid or ignored incidents when they were reported.

'We have evidence of occurrences being reported and they go missing inside CAA, so we have companies doing the right thing and it is not being recognised, and there is a fear that if they do report, it could end up in a prosecution against them.

'Graeme [Harris] assures me it hasn't happened, but that's the perception.

'We know we need to get better with our reporting and that is something we have reminded companies of again today.'

Nicholson said CAA needed to do routine surveillance in the form of on the ground visits to operators, instead of focussing on small things like seat belt restraints and carriage of LPG containers.

'They're encouraging good behaviour through safety forums and mentoring and programmes to upgrade supervision capabilities.'

When a new safety levy started last year the 'quid pro quo' was that there would be routine surveillance at no charge.

'There was an expectation by us that it would be in place by now, but CAA is much more has focussed on process through safety management systems, than in actually getting out and walking the talk,' said Nicholson.