NTSB Wants TAWS and FDRs on Many Helicopters

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) wants the FAA to require all U.S.-registered turbine-powered helicopters certificated to carry at least six passengers to be equipped with TAWS (terrain awareness and warning system).  The Board also wants FDRs (flight data recorders) on larger helicopters as well.

These recommendations are two of five contained in the final report of a 2004 fatal helicopter accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

On March 23, 2004, an Era Aviation Sikorsky S-76A++ crashed into the Gulf about 70 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston, Texas.  Although visual meteorological conditions existed, it was a dark night with very few external visual cues. The aircraft was being flown by two pilots and was transporting eight oil service personnel.

The Board determined that the probable cause of the accident was the flight crew's failure to identify and arrest the helicopter's descent for undetermined reasons, which resulted in controlled flight into the water.

"A terrain warning system would have given the pilots enough time to arrest their descent and save the lives of all aboard," Mark V. Rosenker, the NTSB's acting chairman said. "It is well past time for the benefits from these standard safety devices to be made available to passengers on helicopter transports as they are on fixed wing planes."

The Board noted that when the FAA required TAWS for airplanes having six or more passengers in 2000, the technology had not been developed for the unique characteristics of helicopter flight.  The technology is now available for helicopters and should be required, the Board said.

Flight Data Recorder 

In the Era Aviation accident, the aircraft wasn't equipped with a flight data recorder, and the cockpit voice recorder was improperly installed, rendering its information almost unusable.  Because of these shortcomings, the Board wasn't able to determine the sequence of events that led to the helicopter's inadvertent descent.

In 2003, the FAA exempted S-76A and several other helicopter models from its requirement that they be equipped with flight data recorders. The Board disagreed with that assessment, and noted that it had participated in the investigation of another S-76 helicopter crash in Estonia, the first accident known to involve a large helicopter for which FDR data was available. Those data were extremely valuable to investigators, the Board said.

The lack of FDR data significantly hampered the Era investigation, the Board said, and it urged the FAA to require FDRs on commercial helicopters such as the one involved in the Gulf of Mexico crash.

The Board also recommended that cockpit voice recorders on aircraft be functionally checked before the first flight of each day and that a periodic maintenance check be accomplished as part of the approved maintenance check of the aircraft.

In its other recommendations, the Board said the FAA should expedite its initiative to improve flight following where traditional radar coverage doesn't exist, such as in portions of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, and improve training for certain flight control systems.

A summary of the Board's findings is available at www.ntsb.gov. Look under "Publications."  The entire accident report will appear on the website in several weeks, according to the Board.  03-09-2006.

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