Robinson R66 Helicopter Fleet Suffers Second Fatal Crash
Philip, South Dakota is the site of the second fatal Robinson R66 crash. This time, only the pilot was on board the helicopter. The first fatal R66 crash, which happened in July, killed two.
How does the R66 safety record stack up so far? 
Since there are only 41 R66's on the US registry, the record stacks up poorly.
Before the Robinson R66 came along, there were about 1.2 fatal turbine helicopter accidents for every 100,000 hours flown. For the R66 crashes to be in line with that norm, each of the 41 R66's in the fleet would need to have logged 4000 hours. Since Robinson didn't start delivering the R66 until November 2010, that's virtually impossible. More realistically, the average time on an R66 is less than 400 hours.
Though not a scientific analysis, as of now it looks as though Robinson's R66 is about 10 times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than other turbine helicopters.
Sure, this is a small sample. Perhaps it's too soon to draw any conclusions. But should R66 owners and pilots be concerned?
Of course they should.
So you are just going to write an article bashing R66s without even noting the cause? Credibility, gone.
Commercial P-
Don't yet know the cause of either accident. I do know that, at the moment, the R66 safety record is, statistically speaking, very poor.
Not sure how "credibility" plays into it. We don't have to wait for causes to be determined to note the mathematical facts. The R66 is currently ten times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than the competition.
Is there disagreement on the math?
First off; having paid attention in Statistics class we all know you're statement is biased and premature at best.
You can't compare the R66 accidents to operators/manufacturers. What you need to compare are the pilots that are flying the machines. Traditionally low time vs high time and you'll find accident rates fit right in with the industry average.
You will always see a higher accident rate with Robinson's aircraft due to the nature of the flying they do and given the time pilots have on the machines.
will be interesting to see what actually happened before we jump to conclusions here boys.
LongLiner -
Hmmm. Your first point misses the mark, I think. The numbers are the numbers. They are neither premature nor biased. Sure, it may be premature to draw conclusions from the numbers by saying, for example that the R66 must be dangerous. But I haven't said that. I've said only that it is far more likely, statistically speaking, for an R66 to be involved in a fatal accident. That statement is simply a fact.
There may be something more to your other point, however. I've heard it argued that the R66 attracts pilots who are less experienced because, for example, it is less expensive than other turbine helicopters and thus more "accessible." If so, that might explain the R66's higher accident rate than other turbines.
But there are a couple of problems with that theory. First, while a new R66 is less expensive than any other new turbine, it is probably more expensive than the average used turbine. Since there is no real used R66 market, R66s would seem to be on average more expensive and thus *less* accessible, not more.
Second, neither of the R66 accidents seem to involve operations that were, from a piloting perspective, particularly challenging. The South Dakota crash, for example, appears to have occurred in cruise. Hardly an operation where you'd expect low piloting time to come into play.
But, as you say, at this point it's too early to say.
Thanks for the comment.
Interestingly you both have a point. I have owned both R22 and R44 aircraft flown in the UK. Many happy hours of private flying. Interestingly both those aircraft after I sold them crashed.... So low hour pilots are a statistic that has to be taken in to account.
However the R66 I was to believe would be a more professional work horse like a jet ranger so statistically it needs to stack up. I'm not flying a 66 until the bugs are ironed out or I might end up nose first in route 66!.