The Rotorcraft Collective: Preflighting Your Passengers

This is the first installment of the FAA's Rotorcraft Collective safety series. Briefing your helicopter passengers is essential for a safe flight. This video briefly reviews some best practices for pre-flighting passengers.

[@chrishill976]

Nice work and excellent message on passenger safety and preflight briefings

[@MikeSmith-bd6so]

Well done. Stay safe. 😎

[@user-kx2wt2fd6x]

Nothing about "bracing" in the event of an emergency landing ?

[@bretnewman286]

That is a sad situation that people lost there lives due to the fact not know how to release themselves or deal with escaping a down aircraft in water. I am sure that incident prompted this training video. I was instructed by a Retire Military flight instructor and He never mentioned anything about briefing passengers.

[@SaberToothBicycle]

This wouldn't have saved the passengers of the helicopter involved in the crash they referenced. In that accident, the passengers were wearing supplemental restraint systems. A dangling strap from one of the supplemental restraints was the cause of the fuel-shutoff, from which the pilot was unable to recover--resulting in the ditching. And the same supplemental restraint systems significantly complicated the passengers ability to egress. Inverted, underwater, having to fumble and work purely by feel--no amount of pre-flight instruction would've likely enabled those passengers to get out alive. I hope that the FAA doesn't consider this an adequate "fix" to address that accident--and the passenger fatalities--which was attributable directly to the use of those supplemental restraints. The full final report on that tragic, needless, totally preventable, multiple-fatality helicopter ditching can be found at ntsb.gov

[@FAAnews]

Hi Tim - Thanks for taking the time to write, and we appreciate your comments on this video. The video is intended to emphasize to helicopter pilots the importance of a comprehensive passenger briefing that is clearly understood. The preflight briefing should always address egressing the helicopter if ditching is required with whatever restraint system is used. It is not intended to specifically address the accident you note. We simply used this as a sample accident where the importance of a thorough passenger briefing could have helped.

[@SaberToothBicycle]

Thank you. I also very much appreciate you taking the time to reply. @@FAAnews said: "...we simply used this as a sample accident where the importance of a thorough passenger briefing could've helped." Contrary to your reply, those passengers' preflight safety briefing did not help them--and even if it had been more thorough, that would not and could not have saved them in the example accident. The danger in that accident situation; the primary safety issue which lead to the fatalities--was the use of supplemental restraint systems which hindered the passengers' egress. Certainly the information contained in this video is spot on, and the advice herin is valuable to all involved in helicopter operations; not only flight crews and passengers, but also maintenance and ground-handling personnel. Yet here, we have a well produced FAA "lessons learned" style video--one which specifically shows images of and highlights that tragic helicopter ditching accident--but regrettably, the FAA's video skips right over the primary safety lessons the NTSB learned--from the very example accident the video's makers chose to select. With all due respect, that glaring omission, along with the implication that the fatalities in that ditching accident could've been avoided by a preflight briefing--is simply not in alignment with the NTSB's findings, nor is it in keeping with the FAA's own mission statement: "Our continuing mission is to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world."