30-Year Trend Shows Continuing Improvement in U.S. Helicopter Safety

WASHINGTON DC – Compiling data that reaches back to 1985, the number of fatal and non-fatal helicopter accidents have continued to decrease at a steady rate in the United States according to the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team (www.USHST.org).  The improvement can be traced back to a number of factors: enhancements in manufacturing and design, improved materials and components, more extensive training, better pilot skills and awareness, better maintenance operations, new technology, and other factors.

Some peaks and valleys in the data have occurred during the three decades, including lower than expected accidents in 1988 and 1996, and a higher than expected number of accidents in 1990, 1994 and 2013.

When looking at the number of accidents in longer ten-year periods, total accidents per year have declined by 40 percent and fatal accidents have been nearly cut in half since the late 1980s.

    Period            Avg. Accidents        Avg. Fatal Accidents

                                Per Year                      Per Year

1985 – 1994                198                              35

1995 – 2004                176                              30

2005 – 2014                152                              25

2015 – 2017                118                              18