Presentation Title: What can we learn from old helicopter accidents?
Theme: Military History
Presenter: Mr Philip Creagh 

Preliminary analysis has been completed of the data from major accident investigations of Australian Air Force helicopters from the start of operations in 1947 until the Air Force deployed helicopters to Vietnam in mid-1966. During that period there were nine major accidents, and official investigation reports for five of which have been recovered from archives and examined. More archival records should be available shortly.

The findings and recommendations from those reports were assessed against the Holistic Aviation Safety model, which places causal factors into four main areas: Human Factors; Technological Factors; Organisational Factors; and Environmental Factors. The reports, perhaps surprisingly, identified Organisational Factors as the most common causes found in the accidents. Given the rudimentary, almost experimental, construction of early helicopters, and the low experience base of pilots, it might be expected that Technological or Human Factors (described in the early years by the simplistic term ‘pilot error’) to have been the most prominent. 

Two aspects of Organisational Factors were repeatedly identified during official investigations: insufficient safety oversight, and deficient training. These aspects were present in almost all accidents, yet not one of the reports reviewed in this research presented recommendations to address these serious and apparently systemic problems.  This presentation will focus on the shortcomings of Flying Supervision of early Air Force helicopter operations and assess the effectiveness of the investigations of the early accidents.

Philip Creagh is a retired RAAF navigator who flew on C-130 aircraft, was a navigation instructor, a project manager, and was also a member of the Defence Aviation Safety Authority. His background in these diverse fields will stand him in good stead for this research. No similar research has been previously conducted on accident investigations into these major accidents involving Air Force helicopters.