FAA to improve helicopter safety, prevent deadly fires
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to take a major step toward preventing people from being burned to death in helicopter crashes and will require newly manufactured helicopters to have systems that avoid fuel leaks, which have caused hundreds of fires that led to scores of deaths and serious injuries.
In announcing the new requirement, the FAA tacitly acknowledged that it has failed for decades to protect helicopter occupants from fires that sometimes ignite after rollovers, hard landings and mild crashes whose impact the occupants had survived.
Post-crash helicopter fires have been a known problem since the 1960s, and USA TODAY reported in 2014 that at least 79 people had died in the previous 20 years from burns or smoke inhalation after mild helicopter crashes.
Safety last: Lies and coverups mask roots of small-plane carnage
"This is a monumental first step in advancing helicopter safety in the U.S.," said Gary Robb, a Kansas City aviation-injury attorney.
The National Transportation Safety Board in July urged the FAA to require all newly manufactured helicopters to have rugged fuel tanks and fuel lines that resist rupture and leaks. The board cited an October 2014 medical-helicopter crash in Texas in which a flight nurse and a paramedic were burned to death after surviving the impact of the crash. The overwhelming number of helicopters in the U.S. have brittle fuel systems that cannot withstand a hard landing or mild crash, the NTSB said in its letter to the FAA.
The new FAA requirement, disclosed in the Federal Register on Nov. 5, will not affect the roughly 10,000 helicopters currently flown in the U.S. and will likely take years or longer to make a difference because it will apply only to brand new helicopters.
"It's going to take a good 20 years until it has a measurable effect," said Chicago aviation attorney Kevin Durkin, noting that helicopters are typically flown for 25 to 30 years.
The FAA tried in 1994 to reduce post-crash helicopter fires but that effort fell short because it required crash-resistant fuel systems only on newly designed helicopters. Most helicopters -- even brand-new models — are manufactured based on old designs that are exempt from the 1994 requirement.
The FAA noted in its Nov. 5 announcement that by the end of 2014, only 16% of the nation's helicopter fleet complied with the 1994 regulation for crash-resistant fuel systems.
Durkin said that outcome was predictable because aircraft manufacturers avoid new safety regulations by making helicopters and airplanes under old designs that are exempt from new requirements. "The FAA knew their regulation would have no effect when they did this 20 years ago. They know how aviation works," Durkin said.
The FAA still has to develop a detailed proposal for requiring crash-resistant fuel systems on new helicopters and allow public comment on the proposal -- a process that could take several years before a new regulation takes effect.