In 2005, the global civil helicopter accident rate was at 9.4 per 100,000 flight hours; for the United States, with a little more than 14,000 civil helicopters — 41 percent of the world’s total — the rate was 9.1 per 100,000 flight hours. These rates had held fairly level over the preceding five years, and this lack of progress was judged to be unacceptable.
In September of that year, the members of the International Helicopter Safety Symposium (IHSS) met in Montreal and formed the International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST), taking on the goal of reducing civil helicopter accidents by 80 percent within 10 years. The IHST program was based on the U.S. Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) (ASW, 1/08, p. 26), a government-industry group focused on airline safety. While the two programs are now fairly similar, the biggest difference between CAST and IHST is that CAST …
