Fifteen “highly promising” technologies, including Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning Systems (EGPWS) and moving map displays, have the potential to mitigate most major safety issues plaguing helicopter operations worldwide, according to a team of European helicopter safety specialists.
The European Helicopter Safety Team (EHEST) recommended — in a study published by the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands (NLR), with results released in October 2014 — that the industry should “channel … technological development in line with the results of the study.”1
The EHEST is the European component of the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST), which was established in 2005 and quickly stated a goal of reducing the worldwide helicopter accident rate by 80 percent by 2016 (see “U.S. Helicopter Accident Rates Down in 2014”). EHEST says it is committed to that goal, with an emphasis on improvements in European helicopter safety. Toward that end, E…
