The Federal Aviation Administration’s Rotorcraft Directorate will host the 2015 International Rotorcraft Safety Conference April 21-23, 2015, at the Hurst Conference Center in Hurst, Texas, a Fort Worth suburb. The conference will feature presentations, exhibits, break-out sessions and speeches from major people in the helicopter community. The purpose of the conference is to reduce the national helicopter accident rate, particularly in the personal/private, instructional/training, and aerial application industries. The audience is expected to be diverse with pilots, mechanics, small company owners, industry executives, operators and government regulators from the United States and abroad.
The conference’s first day, April 21, will open with programs designed to appeal to the entire helicopter community with presentations by National Transportation Safety Board Member Robert Sumwalt, survivors of helicopter accidents or near-accidents and an FAA-led discussion on the patterns we see in fatal helicopter accidents. We will then break into separate sections in the afternoon for pilots and mechanics, with pilots discussing autorotations, and health and risk assessments. Mechanics will discuss installing NextGen technology, human factors in maintenance, supplemental type certificates and a planned website, where information and lessons learned will be shared. The dual format will continue April 22. The third day, “International Day,” will include presentations from the European Aviation Safety Agency, Transport Canada Civil Aviation, industry groups and the FAA.
The information gained at this conference could help pilots, mechanics and others prevent a catastrophic accident. The event is free to encourage attendance. We also plan to offer 8 hours of Inspection Authorization credits, and we are working toward awarding WINGS credits. We will have rooms available for meetings and networking. We are committed to this conference’s success because personal/private, instructional/training and aerial application industries accounted for about 57 percent of all rotorcraft accidents in the United States during the past five years. Personal/private flights also accounted for about 27 percent of all rotorcraft fatal accidents – by far the largest percentage of fatal accidents of the sectors examined.
As part of this conference, we plan to host a job fair. If you have positions that you would like to fill, we can offer you an opportunity at no cost to you or your company. We will provide tables and chairs.
If you have any questions, please contact me at 817-222-5123, at [email protected] or at the FAA Rotorcraft Directorate, 2601 Meacham Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas 76137. You can register and find details about the FAA conference at www.faahelisafety.org.
