NEWS | THE NORTHPORT RECORD, SEPTEMBER 26, 2004

A Catch-22 For The Robinson R-22

Red tape traps helicopter that killed two off Crabmeadow

By Michael R. Sisak / The Northport Record

The Robinson R-22, the model of helicopter that resulted in the deaths of two people when it plunged into the waters off the coast of Crabmeadow Beach in Northport last month, has become an unwitting co-conspirator in a federally permitted aeronautic paradox, rife with casualties, destruction and questionable decision-making, since it first appeared in 1979.

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The R-22, an inexpensive, piston-powered, two-seat, light helicopter, is used primarily for pilot training flights, like the one from Islip that Simon A. Gibson, 29, a flight instructor from West Babylon, and Ronald Somers, 37, of Huntington, were on when their helicopter fell from the sky, about 6:02 p.m. on August 29.

The Northport crash was one of the latest in a staggering number of accidents involving the R-22, including two this month. On September 5, an R-22 Beta made a hard landing and rolled over at the North Las Vegas Airport in Nevada. The helicopter was destroyed, but the pilot escaped with minor injuries. On September 14, an R-22 lost engine power and sustained substantial damage during an instructional flight in Spanish Fork, Utah. The pilot and the flight instructor were not injured.

Within the last five years, 170 helicopters in the R-22 series, which includes four models, have been involved in accidents, 33 of which caused at least one fatality, according to a database of crash information compiled by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Since September 30, 1999, 50 people have died in R-22 crashes. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, 1,112 R-22 helicopters are registered to fly in the United States.

In a study of five years of NTSB probable cause data, from January 1998 to December 2002, pilot error is cited as the cause of 120 out of 128 accidents involving the R-22, a rate of approximately 93.75 percent.

Other similarly designed helicopters had a lesser ratio of accidents ruled pilot error. Pilot error was cited as the cause of 75.3 percent of accidents of the Hughes/Schweizer 269/300 series; 63.5 percent of the accidents of the MD/Hughes 300/500 Series; 76.3 percent of Bell 47 Series accidents; and 73.76 percent of Bell 206 Series crashes.

Kurt Robinson, the vice president of product support for the Torrance, California-based Robinson Helicopter Company, said the difference in crash statistics, and the skew of the R-22 toward involvement in error-related accidents, comes with its dominance of the training market and the relative inexperience of pilots who train others. Under FAA regulations, helicopter pilots can be certified as training instructors after completing 200 hours of helicopter flight time. Most commercial employers require potential pilots to have flown at least 500 hours, directing under-qualified flyers toward a training job.

“We believe [200 hours is] still low, but at least it sets a floor,” Robinson, the son of the R-22’s designer, Frank Robinson, said. “It’s a total Catch-22. That’s the whole thing about it that drives you nuts… The people that should be training are the ones who have a lot of hours, a lot of experience. They’re in high demand.”

Robinson said that his company details the causes of accidents and instructs pilots on ways to avoid potentially hazardous scenarios, such as power lines and thunderstorms, in a four-and-a-half day safety course taught at its factory. In 1995, the FAA issued a special Federal Aviation Regulation, which required more rigorous training for R-22 pilots.

“We believe that has substantially reduced air crashes,” Robinson said. “If you go out driving [a car] and it becomes foggy, you can slow down and go along. In an airplane you get yourself in a situation like that, it could be lethal.”

Gibson, the instructor who died in the Northport crash, had 332 hours of flight experience, including 92 in his three weeks with Eastern Flight Services, the flight instruction school for which he had worked. Farmingdale-based NTSB investigator David Muzio, the lead authority investigating the crash, said that Gibson had flown 10 hours in the 24-hour period prior to his death.