EASA sets new safety targets

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) announced at Helitech International that it is looking to improve helicopter safety by 50 per cent in the next 10 years.

The specifics of the target, including the baseline and indicators, were not revealed by EASA Certification Director Trevor Woods at the conference, but he said that the main measure would likely be serious injuries and fatalities.

Woods wants the new targets to not increase regulatory pressure on operators: “The typical complaints we hear are ‘we are getting too many audits; high-risk operations are not well defined and change from country to country’.”

The target mirrors that of the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) in 2006, which aimed to ambitiously cut the accident rate by 80 per cent in 10 years. Although there was a discernible downward trend, the IHST failed to meet the target, but Woods pointed out that there were some positives in the drive to improve safety, specifically in controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) incidents.

Since 2005, there has not been a single CFIT incident. Woods explained that ‘we want to eliminate one risk, like CFIT,’ instead of aiming to lessen many types of accidents at once.

Several recent technological developments could be key to the drive, Woods asserted, including the use of virtual-reality headsets to make simulator technology more accessible, and fly-by-wire controls, which Woods said were ‘fantastic opportunity to reduce pilot workload’.