Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing December 2022 (third month of FY23).
Attached is the Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing for December 2022 (third 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
Dec Totals: 12 accidents, 2 fatal accident, 5 fatalities
- The 12 accidents during the month were the highest for a December since FY13 (also 12). Eight of the twelve accidents occurred during the first 2 weeks of the month.
- The accidents during the month were distributed among at least 7 different industry sectors with no more than 2 accidents occurring in any one industry.
- With the 2 fatal accidents in December, the string of consecutive months with no more than 1 fatal accident during the month stopped at 5 months (Jul – Nov).
- One of the two fatal accidents during December occurred to a U.S. registered helicopter operating outside of the U.S. (operated in Ireland).
FY23 Summary
FY23 Totals: 26 accidents, 4 fatal accidents, 8 fatalities
Accidents (include both fatal & non-fatal accidents):
- The FY23 estimated accident rate for Oct-Dec was 4.05 per 100K hours (7% lower than same period in FY22, 20% higher than 5 year average for same period).
- Personal/Private (6 events, 23% of total), Instructional/Training (4 events, 15% of total), Air Tour / Sightseeing (3 events, 12% of total), and Offshore (3 events 12% of total) accounted for 16 of the 26 accidents (62%).
Fatal Accidents:
- The FY23 estimated fatal accident rate for Oct-Dec was 0.62 per 100K hours (45% lower than same period in FY22, 32% lower than 5 year average for same period).
- Two of the three fatal accidents for Oct-Dec involved offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. FY17 was the last time more than 1 fatal accident involving offshore Gulf of Mexico operations occurred during the entire fiscal year.
- Through 3 months of the FY, 15% of helicopter accidents had a fatality.
Fatalities:
- The FY23 estimated fatality rate for Oct-Dec was 1.25 per 100K hours (29% lower than same period in FY22, 29% lower than 5 year average for same period).
- The five fatalities during December accounted for more than the Oct-Nov FY23 fatalities combined (3) and more than doubled the FY total (from 3 to 8 fatalities). Four of the five December fatalities occurred during a single event.
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 0.67 per 100K hours through Dec 2022.
Lee Roskop
Fleet Safety Section, AIR-723
Operational Safety Branch, Compliance & Airworthiness Division
817-222-5337
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