COURTESY DAVE DZIURA


fall through—this is your commitment point. “Practice a scan of your power margin, pedal position, and rate of descent prior to that point, to trigger the go-around if any- thing’s in question,” Dziura adds. “It’s cru- cial to ensure you have adequate margin, before the commitment point, for a loss of headwind or change in conditions as you descend below obstacles.” The same holds true for takeoffs over an


obstacle, Dziura says. In such cases, iden- tify a point where you’ll abort the takeoff safely if you’re not clear of the obstacle. Practicing this plan of “escape” before exe- cuting the maneuver will pay off when it matters.


Put Safety Ahead of Your Ego If you think that going around for a new approach or aborting a maneuver will make you look like a bad pilot, rethink your


Dave Dziura, chief pilot at Colorado Heli-Ops and chair of the HAI Safety Working Group, flies a scenic tour outside Boulder, Colorado, in a Bell 505. He regularly provides flight instruction in the aircraft as well as Robinson helicopters.


attitude. As Dziura wisely warns, arrogance has no place in the cockpit.


“Someone once told me the only rea- son not to go around when conditions


Safety: Who Will Survive?


GIVEN HELICOPTER PILOTS’ WELL-EARNED REPUTATION as aviators who plan for the worst, you’d think we’d have better success at preventing accidents. A quick review of our accident rates and common causal factors, however, suggests that, regrettably, we don’t.


Accident Prevention Still Falling Short I share my industry colleagues’ frustrations in observing the trend of preventable global rotorcraft accidents. Despite our best efforts to reduce fatal accident rates through enhanced training, safety management systems, industry standards, best practices, safety culture, and so on, our goals appear to remain elusive. We know we must do something, but what we choose to do is a matter of some debate. Here are some questions we must confront while promot- ing global rotorcraft safety through targeted accident-prevention


efforts: ■ Why must we continue to remind pilots to do the right thing? ■ How do we make the business case for safety? ■ Which safety promotion activities are the most effective? ■ Will we ever reach the “unreachable” people in our profes-


sion, and how much time should we invest in attempting to do so? I don’t claim to have the best answers to these questions.


DECEMBER 2021 ROTOR 67


I do know, however, that pilots and mechanics/engineers don’t purposefully set out to crash their aircraft. Rather, they fail to acknowledge an insidious chain of errors and omissions and miss the one final opportunity to break it. Despite our inherent pessimism, we unwittingly fall prey to the human condition.


A Matter of Survival Our industry faces growing existential threats from many fronts, including community opposition and overregulation. Whether fairly or unfairly, our safety performance is being judged—and we’ve been found wanting. Each helicopter crash, while often tragic in its own right, also erodes the trust of the public we serve, and regulators must answer to them. I’m honored to join the growing number of global aviation


safety professionals in HAI’s working groups, the Vertical Aviation Safety Team, and the US Helicopter Safety Team who remain undeterred. In an industry necessarily filled with pessi- mists, we choose to remain optimistic about our ability to pre- vent accidents. And we’ll continue to carry the torch and promote critical safety initiatives to support the survival of our industry.


aren’t ideal is ego. Keeping this in mind keeps me humble and prepared to put the safety of the operation ahead of the opera- tion itself.”


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