If it’s not the oldest joke in aviation, it’s probably close: The purpose of that big fan out front (or on top of a helicopter) is to keep the cockpit cool. If it stops, you should see the pilot sweat!
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often. Documented powerplant and fuel-system failures have caused just more than 1,000 fixed-wing accidents in the past 10 years. Engine stoppages that defy explanation—post-crash examination finds no component that isn’t working properly—are very nearly as common. Throw in another 900 because of fuel mismanagement (the most preventable of all accident causes), and we reach about 2,900—in 220 million hours of flight time. That’s less than one every 75,000 flight hours if you’re keeping score. (Perhaps because more of the fleet are turbines, they’re even rarer in helicopters.)
We don’t know how many engine stoppages end in relatively uneventful landings that never make it into the NTSB database. If you assume these equal the number in which injury or aircraft damage meet the definition of “accident,” the intervals between events still average more than 10 times the total career experience of the typical nonprofessional pilot. Which is no guarantee: One friend of ours survived two before he passed his private pilot checkride. (And, yes, he kept flying.)
Another fact that might reduce perspiration is that properly executed forced landings are manageable emergencies, with a survival rate of 92 percent. That’s about half the lethality of all GA accidents, around 15 percent of which are fatal. It’s essential to remember that airspeed (or main rotor rpm) is life. Keep the aircraft under control no matter what. Hitting whatever’s in front of you with the wings level will almost certainly be less violent than stalling in from 200 feet or catching a wing tip and cartwheeling. Touching down with the skids pointed straight ahead usually works out better than rolling the helicopter, and either is preferable to dropping from the sky after the main rotor stalls.
Except for fuel mismanagement, most engine stoppages couldn’t have been foreseen or prevented by the pilots, so it’s a good thing a cool head and basic aerodynamic knowledge improve your chances so much. And, yes, practice helps, too—provided the effort to simulate an emergency stops short of actually causing one. FT
AOPA Air Safety Institute statistician David Jack Kenny still hates simulating engine failures in an airplane—but has learned to enjoy practice autorotations. Go figure.
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