New 'Toolkits' Developed For Ongoing Safety Improvements

The International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) was formed to lead a government and industry cooperative effort to address factors that were affecting an unacceptable helicopter accident rate. The group’s mission is to reduce the international civil helicopter accident rate by 80 percent by 2016.

With this goal in mind, the IHST has developed various “toolkits” aimed at helping members of the helicopter industry to improve safety and reduce the accident rate. These guides are now available on topics such as safety management systems, training programs, maintenance programs, flight data monitoring systems, and risk assessment. Wherever these documents have been widely distributed and utilized, we have seen a reduction in the accident rate within the civil helicopter community.

The IHST toolkits, along with safety-related videos and analysis reports can be obtained at no cost through the group’s newly reorganized web site. The IHST web site is now simpler to navigate for tools and reports, and allows easy access to worldwide data and information.

The organization invites interested parties to look at our web site once again and see the helpful information and tools that are available. There are also new Presentations sections and an updated calendar of helicopter-related events. In the box on the upper right hand side, visitors can click on and access the toolkits in the areas of safety management, training, technology, and maintenance. The group has placed a brief survey in this section to gather feedback regarding the toolkits, as well as user thoughts about new potential toolkit topics.

FMI: www.IHST.org