CAA launches broadside over pilot death rate
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) director Graeme Harris has attacked the commercial helicopter industry, saying its pilots have a workplace death rate 75 times the national average.
His comments, which are strongly disputed by Aviation New Zealand, were made in the wake of an interim Transport Accident Investigation Commission report into a fatal Wanaka crash caused by a pair of trousers flying out an open door and tangling in the tail rotor.
In an email newsletter sent to industry members yesterday, Harris said that 16 of the 29 employee deaths in commercial aviation over the past decade involved helicopters.
Based on figures from 2011-17, he said, the annual fatality rate for commercial helicopter pilots per 1000 workers was 75 times the national average for all workplaces, compared with 44 times the average for forestry, which was the next worst industry.
Harris said he was publicising the statistics to raise awareness of the problem.
‘‘Sadly, the high rate of workrelated harm in the sector doesn’t seem to have a particularly high profile with the public, the media, the customers of helicopter operators or even in the sector itself. I’m confident that will change.
‘‘The CAA’s efforts to improve helicopter safety will step up considerably in coming months.’’
Aviation NZ chief executive John Nicholson said there was no disagreement over the need to improve helicopter safety, but the CAA figures were misleading.
They assumed a total helicopter industry workforce of 1100, but with 131 commercial operators flying more than 500 choppers, employee numbers including ground crew and office staff were likely to be at least four times that, he said.
The rates for all helicopters had been trending down over the past three years and were now at 1.13 fatalities and 6.29 accidents per 100,000 hours flown.
The tourism industry was worried about the impact Harris’ comments would have on safetyconscious overseas markets, Nicholson said.
Yet helicopter air transport operations, such as glacier tours, had the lowest accident rate of two per 100,000 hours.