Is travelling ina helicopter particularly dangerous

[Lardlizard]

How many more times dangerous than travelling in the roads I wonder ? Or is it like flying safter than road travel ?

Safer

I wouldn’t get in one...

I don't know statistics but on the face of it helicopters with one engine are dangerous because if anything goes wrong with the engine, they go straight down. I think you can get helicopters with two engines but they are larger and more expensive.

Helicopters do not compare to aircraft which have two engines, can, to an extent, float on air currents and can make emergency landings.

Are you thinking of the overall risk of making all your journeys by helicopter rather than car? That might be a complex one to calculate, depending on the roads you drive on, the speed you drive at, the traffic conditions, the safety features of your car, etc.

The police helicopters weren’t flying on Sunday due to low fog. I think that very successful people have the power to influence those working for them.

I wouldn't get in one either. One engine and the gilding capacity of a brick.

They are more dangerous than cars and planes but well maintained they are not that dangerous - the big ones have 2 engines too. Gear and rotor failure is the main danger. That helicopter should not have been flying or should have been using instruments (they were flying visually apparently). I know 2 helicopter pilots and they both were surprised they flew in those condition in that kind of aircraft

Dh used to work on oil rigs and hated the helicopter flights. Said the North Sea survival training was a waste of time as it was so unlikely anyone would survive a ditching.

The Leicester football club helicopter crash was awful.... Some sort of mechanical failure?

My brother is a pilot. He would never fly in one, he says they're too "fiddly", whatever that means.

But also explained that they won't fall out of the sky if the engine fails. He said there is a procedure the pilots are trained in, and as mad as it sounds, apparently you can still fly a helicopter even if the engine isn't running. It's called "autorotation". I have Google it but it doesn't make any sense to me

I like flying and have done my solo flight in a fixed wing aircraft. I don't trust rotaries.

A fixed wing aircraft won't fall out of the sky if you lose your engines, even large passenger aircraft. And in most cases you have multiple engines. I know of at least one case where a Boeing on a transatlantic flight lost all power to all engines and had to glide to the Azores for an emergency landing. It would have been a rough landing but noone died.

@lilmisstoldyouso I've heard of autorotation (although I don't claim to understand it) but I thought it was only possible in very limited circumstances?

Some helicopters, like the one that crashed recently, have two engines. I think they are much safer than being in a car and the vast majority of crashes are pilot error or weather related, rather than a fault with the helicopter.

I have often wondered if helicopter pilots are the aviation equivalent of boy racers as so many accidents seem to be attributed to the pilots doing something they shouldn't.
Either that or the manufacturers are good at passing the buck.

I have flown in a helicopter but wouldn't now unless I had to.

My friend is a rescue helicopter pilot and finds fixed wing aircraft dangerous! He also mentioned the autorotation thing.

His main fear is (and this is to do with the nature of his job) soneone dropping something out the door which gets caught in the tail rotor. Recently a chopper went down as a piece of clothing fell out.

Statistically it’s safer than being on the roads though I imagine.

If you fly it into an immovable object because you can’t see properly. I don’t think it makes any difference if you are in a plane or a helicopter.

Also, people who can afford to be in helicopters tend to be rich and high profile so accidents get more widely reported.

“Said the North Sea survival training was a waste of time as it was so unlikely anyone would survive a ditching.”

I know very little about helicopter flight but do know enough people who’ve survived a career as a helicopter pilot to suspect it is not as dangerous as all that. Pilots are generally very risk-conscious people and do not willingly take part in what they view to be inherently dangerous activities.

WRT the statement about made by another poster, I fly Boeings which are fully equipped with life rafts for ditching scenarios. We used to laugh about the fact that Airbus had not equipped it’s smaller airliners with rafts and instead the ditching instructions involved asking all the passengers to climb out of the ditched aircraft onto the wings and stand there and wait for resume. Oh, how we laugh - the chances of surviving w ditching were in our mind infinitesimally slim, and then what were the chances that passengers would calmly stand on the wings and wait for rescue. Almost nil. Yet when the situation arose for real, that is exactly what happened. I heard the news before I saw it and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the Airbus floating in the Hudson with its passengers all waiting patiently on the wings.

So it’s all well and good saying your DH says....etc, but the fact is that many of these emergency procedures are borne out of experience of other crashes that have gone before, and the lessons learnt from those are incorporated into current safety protocols. If an aviation company, whether it be helicopter or airline, ask you to do something in an emergency situation, there is good reason to suggest it would be an action that would help your survival chances.

A boy I knew at school lost his dad in a helicopter crash when we were teens, he was an experienced pilot. I'd never get in one.

I have a friend who flies on the London air ambulance- they practice autorotate on a regular basis. I think it can generally be used in the event of engine failure but of course your choice of landing sites in central London is limited.

One pilot (of fixed wing planes!) once mentioned to me that there is a bolt called the ‘Jesus bolt’ because if it goes you are going to Jesus. Not sure if that’s true but it put me off helicopters for life!!!

I think they're dangerous - you also had the crash in Glasgow and the one in Vauxhall in London.

I went twice on the one to the Isles of Scilly when I was a child, but I don't think I'd choose to go one now.

Better North Sea training has increased hugely the chances of surviving. There have been considerably more successful ditching at sea scenarios since crews were trained in what to do. Crews however don’t like doing the training as it’s unpleasant, scary and many view it in a superstitious way - kinda like tempting fate.

on one now (and anyway Penzance heliport is no more)

I don’t think they’re dangerous - how many times a day do the air ambulances go out and have no incidents?

What’s dangerous is pilots flying in poor conditions.

The real reason that the North Sea boys say they wouldn't survive a ditching is the coldness of the water. I was married to the oil industry for over 20 years.

Littlecandle. That’s why they wear drysuits and life jackets which aims to keep them non-hypothermic until help reaches them. Of course even with all the kit in the world, the North Sea is an adverse environment but the safety measures have helped hugely. As backinthebox said earlier, aviation and maritime industries spend a huge amount of time and money trying to engineer out problems.

They are pretty dangerous but there are things that make them safer. Per flying hour you are much more likely to die in a helicopter crash than a car I think. Several things make them safer. Good experienced pilots. Twin engines. Underwater escape training. Good companies that don’t make their pilots fly when they don’t want feel it is safe just for the convenience of their rich clients and don’t cut corners

It's called "autorotation". I have Google it but it doesn't make any sense to me

I think it means you rapidly ascend then rapidly descend and do that over and over until you reach the ground.