Alexandria, VA, April 3, 2009 — The Air Charter Safety Foundation (ACSF) agrees with remarks made by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker that a renewed focus on safety in the Part 135 on-demand air charter industry is necessary.
In a press statement yesterday, Chairman Rosenker said that “the 2008 accident statistics reveal a mixed picture,” and “[t]here’s a lot of room for improvement in this area, and . . . we continue to do everything we can to identify the safety issues involved . . .”
The air charter industry comprises a wide-variety of aircraft with mission profiles that are almost too numerous to name, but include helicopter EMS and off-shore work, single-engine piston-powered tour operations, just-in-time cargo carriers, and long-range international passenger-carrying turbojets.
“This variation presents a unique challenge when attempting to draw safety conclusions,” explained ACSF Executive Director Jacqueline Rosser. “Today, the industry’s safety record is summed up by a single, all encompassing analysis. It is incredibly difficult to identify safety issues, provide targeted recommendations and then measure the success of interventions if you can’t determine the safety record for each of the distinct aircraft or operational categories.”
For example, the NTSB accident database shows that 26 of the fatalities in 2008 resulted from seven helicopter accidents. But there is no further analysis to put that particular fact into context. “Knowing the helicopter accident rate would allow us to put into perspective the severity of the 2008 accident record. Right now, the NTSB cannot provide a Part 135 helicopter accident rate because flight hours are not tracked by aircraft type,” Rosser explained.
Unfortunately, the current method for collecting Part 135 data is only able to produce the “mixed picture” noted by Chairman Rosenker. The ACSF agrees that an accurate understanding of the industry is necessary to address safety concerns successfully. “Developing the ability to analyze accident rates by type of aircraft or mission would provide a far clearer picture than we have today. It would allow voluntary safety actions, guidance, oversight and regulatory initiatives to be directed at the areas where they are most needed while permitting us to look to those operations with lower accident rates for possible best practices that can be more widely promoted and adopted,” Rosser noted.
The ACSF is committed to improving data collection and safety analysis for the Part 135 on-demand air charter industry. The ACSF believes that industry and government must work together to develop enhanced data collection tools that will permit the NTSB to develop a far clearer picture of the industry than is available today.
