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Birds, Fuel Systems Cited As Helo Hazards Two recent news reports have cited bird strikes and fuel-fed fires as safety concerns for helicopter operators. According to an Associated Press story published over the weekend, operators reported 204 helicopter bird strikes in 2013, a 68% increase from 2009. While some of that is due to increased reporting by pilots, the AP says there has also been an increase in the U.S. of large birds, like Canada geese and turkey vultures, that can do significant damage to an aircraft. “We’re getting more severe damage, more frequent cases of birds penetrating the windshield, and the risk of pilot incapacitation that could cause fatalities for everybody there,” said Gary Roach, an FAA helicopter safety engineer, at a recent FAA meeting. Roach and his colleagues have urged the FAA to establish an industry committee to examine the helicopter/ bird-strike issue, the AP said. Another recent report, by NBC News affiliate KUSA in Denver, examined the incidence of fuel-fed fires in the crashes of medevac helicopters. According to KUSA, the fuel systems in many older helicopters are not well-protected in crashes, and while the FAA requires stronger systems in helicopters certified since 1994, it hasn’t required aircraft that were certified under the older rules to change. According to the NTSB, more than 4,700 of the 5,600 helicopters manufactured since 1994 don’t have fuel systems that would meet the 1994 FAA standards, since they were copies of helicopters that were certified earlier than 1994. The NTSB issued a safety recommendation in July that urged the FAA to mandate crash-resistant fuel systems for all new helicopters, regardless of the date of certification. “Between 1994 and 2013, the NTSB has investigated at least 135 accidents in the United States involving certificated helicopters of various models that resulted in a postcrash fire. Those accidents resulted in 221 fatalities and 37 serious injuries. Only three of the accident helicopters that experienced post-crash fire had crash-resistant fuel systems and crashworthy fuel tanks,” the NTSB wrote (PDF). The KUSA report said it could find only one post-crash fire report involving military helicopters, which have long had crash-resistant fuel systems. “We’ve seen it in the military,” NTSB chairman Christopher Hart told KUSA. “We want to see similar progressive action taken in civilian helicopters.” Airbus officials responded to KUSA that the true impact of postcrash fires on survivability is “not well understood.” Overall, helicopter crash statistics have been improving. According to the International Helicopter Safety Team, Aviation Psychology and Applied Human Factors (2016), 6(1), 53–55
News and Announcements
during the first 6 months of 2015, total accidents in the U.S. were down 28% compared to the same period last year; compared to 2006, the number of accidents has been cut nearly in half. For further information, see the two reports at the following links: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/68afacf4b18041b7ab0a24e36 68626be/dangeroushelicopter-bird-strikes-rise-faa-warns, http:// www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-recs/recletters/A-15-012.pdf.
NASA Talk Examines How Math Located Air France 447 Wreckage On June 1, 2009, Air France Flight 447 with 228 passengers and crew disappeared over the Atlantic while on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. About 2 years after the loss of the aircraft and four intensive searches, a group of statisticians was able to predict almost the exact location of the wreckage. Searchers found it within a week. On Tuesday, February 2, at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, J. Van Gurley presented “Bayesian Search for Air France 447: The Math that Found a Needle in a Haystack” at 2 p.m. in the Pearl Young Theater. Gurley is with Metron, Incorporated, whose Advanced Mathematics Applications Division is credited with producing the analysis that found the aircraft. Bayesian statistics is a set of mathematical rules for using new data to continuously update an existing knowledge base. A well-developed method for planning searches for missing aircraft, ships lost at sea, or people missing on land, Bayesian search theory combines all the available information about the location of a search object. This is important in one-of-a-kind searches where there is little or no statistical data to rely upon. The theory has been applied successfully to searches for the missing nuclear submarine USS Scorpion and the 1,857 shipwreck of the SS Central America. It is used routinely by the U.S. Coast Guard to find people and ships missing at sea. Gurley’s talk presents the basic elements of the theory and how it was used to locate the wreck of Air France flight 447 after two years of unsuccessful search. He will finish with a discussion of the current search for Malaysian Air flight 370 in the Indian Ocean, describing what is known and how the Bayesian approach could be used to guide search efforts. As a senior manager at Metron in the District of Columbia, Gurley leads a number of research and development efforts in predictive analytics, data fusion, and mission planning for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office Ó 2016 Hogrefe Publishing