HUMAN FACTORS IN HELICOPTER SAFETY

Introduction

1. Due to their maneuverability and operational flexibility, helicopters have become

an important alternative means of transport in India during the last decade.
Nonetheless, the number of helicopter accidents has increased in parallel. From 2006 to
2016, around 50-60 accidents have occurred. The fundamental point of this article is to
look at the causal elements that lead to the human mistake in the helicopter mishaps.

2. In India, helicopters are widely used in different scenarios, such as commercial

transportation, rescue missions and military operations. Irrespective of the usage,
human factors and ergonomics indeed should be considered during the design of a
rotorcraft and during the training of pilots.

3. Human Factors. Human conditions such as fatigue, complacency, and stress

are very important in aviation maintenance. These conditions along are often called
human factors. Human factors directly cause or contribute to many aviation accidents. It
is universally agreed that 80 percent of maintenance errors involve human factors. If
they are not detected, they can cause events, worker injuries, wasted time, and even
catastrophically occurred accidents.

Fig 1. Human Error Vs Safety

4. The term human factor has become progressively well known as the aviation
industry understand that human mistake, rather than mechanical disappointment,
underlies most flight mishaps.
Human Factors as an Accident Casual Factor

5. Efforts to understand the casual factor which lead to human error in a civil
aviation accident must be made, in order to reduce the frequency and, consequently, to
reduce the number of accident from current levels. Nonetheless, human error is much
more complex and elusive, making it difficult to apply any sort of investigative method
that is both easily understood and universally accepted.

6. Human factors can be expanded to an acronym SCHELL. The expansion of this

acronym is as under: -

(a) Software.

(b) Culture.

(c) Hardware.

(d) Environment.

(e) Liveware: Individual human.

(f) Liveware: between humans.