FAA Rotorcraft Monthly Accident Briefing - September (End of FY24)
Attached is the(last month of FY24).
(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
September Totals: 9 accidents, 1 fatal accident, 1 fatality
- The 9 accidents during the month were distributed across 8 different industry segments with Personal/Private the only segment with more than 1 accident.
- The single fatal accident and fatality during the month involved a helicopter on a Part 135 flight transporting passengers to a fishing camp in Alaska.
FY24 Summary
FY24 Totals: 99 accidents, 16 fatal accidents, 29 fatalities
Accidents (includes both fatal & non-fatal accidents):
- The FY24 estimated accident rate (full year) was 3.39 per 100K hours (8% lower than the same period in FY23 and 16% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- The FY24 accident rate (3.39) was the lowest since at least FY07 and may be the lowest on record (further research needed). For records going back to FY07, it was also the first time the accident rate was lower than 3.5 per 100K hours.
- The accident count of 99 for FY24 was the second lowest for the 42 FYs on record, trailing only FY20 (97 accidents). The flight hours in FY20 were estimated to be about 350,000 hours lower than FY24.
- U.S. registered helicopters operating outside of the U.S. accounted for 7 of the 99 overall accidents. If these 7 accidents were removed from the count, the overall accident rate would reduce from 3.39 to 3.15 per 100K hours.
- Personal/Private (24%), Aerial Application (18%), Instructional/Training (13%), and Air Tour/Sightseeing (10%) were the industry segments that each had at least 10% of the accidents and together accounted for 65% of the accidents during FY24.
Fatal Accidents:
- The FY24 estimated fatal accident rate (full year) was 0.55 per 100K hours (14% lower than the same period in FY23 and 27% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- The estimated fatal accident rate in FY24 (0.55) was the lowest since FY17 (0.52)
- The total of 16 fatal accidents that occurred in FY24 was the second lowest for the 42 FYs on record, trailing only FY88 (15 fatal accidents).
- For 9 out of 12 months in FY24, the monthly fatal accident count was either 1 or 0. FY88 is the only other case for the 42 FYs on record where 9 or more months in the FY had either 1 or 0 fatal accidents.
- U.S. registered helicopters operating outside of the U.S. accounted for 3 of the 16 fatal accidents. If these 3 fatal accidents were removed from the count, the fatal accident rate would reduce from 0.55 to 0.44 per 100K hours.
- 31% of the fatal accidents for the year occurred during the month of July (5 out of 16 fatal accidents).
- With 6 of the 16 fatal accidents (38%), Personal/Private had twice as many fatal accidents as any other industry segment. The second highest was Aerial Application with 3 of the 16 fatal accidents (19%). No other industry segment had more than two.
Fatalities:
- The FY24 estimated fatality rate was was 0.99 per 100K hours (22% lower than the same period in FY23, 32% lower than the 5 year average for the same period).
- There were 29 fatalities that occurred during the FY, the lowest since FY17 and only the third time for the 42 FYs on record that the number of fatalities was less than 30.
- U.S. registered helicopters operating outside the U.S. accounted for 4 of the 29 fatalities during FY24. If these 4 fatalities were removed from the count, the fatality rate would reduce from 0.99 to 0.86 per 100K hours.
- 48% of the fatalities occurred during 2 months of the FY. About 27% occurred in July (8 out of 29 fatalities), while about 21% occurred in February (6 out of 29 fatalities).
- 21% of the fatalities during the FY (6 out of 29) occurred during a single fatal accident (N130CZ that occurred during February).
- 16% of all accidents that occurred during FY24 had a fatality.
U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) Calendar Year Metrics
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 Sep 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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