This report is based on a presentation held at Helitech Safety Workshop, Amsterdam, 16 October 2014
In 2005 the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) was launched with the objective to reduce the helicopter accident rate by 80% worldwide by 2016. The European Helicopter Safety Team (EHEST) is committed to the IHST objective, with emphasis on improving the European safety.
Technology is not high on the list of highest ranking accident / incident factors, as it is merely the lack of technology that may have led to an accident. Technology provides a variety of solutions that can (directly or indirectly) address the identified safety issues and that can contribute to prevent various types of accidents or to increase survivability. The EHEST’s Specialist Team (ST) Technology was created in March 2011 with the objective to assess the potential of existing and emerging technologies to mitigate accident factors.
Description of work
The ST Technology work consists of listing technologies and linking them with accident causes and contributing factors as identified in EHEST analyses, and then to assess the potential of those technologies to mitigate safety issues. The top 20 safety issues have been identified from EHEST accident analyses. To assess the potential of technologies the team has developed a tool, the so-called technology matrix. The work continued by identifying individual technologies and finally the process of evaluating (rating) these technologies was defined and carried out.
Thanks for pointing out that technology provides solutions that can address identified safety issues to prevent accidents. I would imagine that the airline industry would want to avoid accident factors for the protection of the public. I think that they should look for aviation maintenance solutions that can provide a variety of type-specific helicopter maintenance tooling items.