Abstract
Helicopters are commonly used in search and rescue operations, and hoist operation accidents have occurred during helicopter search and rescue (HSAR) missions. The purposes of this study were to investigate whether the HSAR team to carry out the task of the hoist, may cause casualties accident risk factor. Through the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) database, we collected the statistical analysis of the major accidents of HSAR during 2000–2017, carried out case studies on the investigation report of the HSAR hoist operation casualties in the rear cabin, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with personnel involved in the implementation of the mission. Ensure the completeness through literature reviews and expert meeting discussions. A total of 12 HSAR accidents were identified during the study. Of these, 42% involved were related to hoist operation. The study indicates that there are four essential evaluation dimensions and some risk factors in HSAR missions.
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Appendix A
Appendix A
HSAR hoist operation accident 2000–2017 | ||
|---|---|---|
Year | Description | Injury level |
2017 | UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter conducted a search and rescue joint training at offshore of Taichung Harbor. There were three pilots, three crew chiefs and three rescuers, total of nine people aboard. Two rescuers fell into the ocean due to the hook was separated from the hoist system. Two rescuers sustained minor and severe injuries | Two rescuers sustained minor and severe injuries |
2016 | AS365N3 helicopter crashed into the water during hoisting a rescuer to a vessel about 0.3 nm north from Shimen seashore. NA-107 carried two pilots, one mechanic, and two rescuers | Copilot and one rescuer were killed, and the other three were seriously injured. The helicopter was hull loss |
2011 | UH-1H helicopter had the captain and copilot, one flight engineer, and three rescuers. The aircraft during its third training operations at Longxiang Riverside Park, Flight engineer released the wire rope and started to retrieve the rope to hoist personnel after seeing the end of the rope was hooked well with the trainee. Then the helicopter started moving forward slowly, and at the same time, the flight engineer kept on retrieving the wire rope. At 30 ft from the ground, the flight engineer felt the rope retrieving process was stopped and the rope started to slip down. After inspection flight engineer found that the pulling device could not be controlled, which led the rope to slip downwards and saw the hoisted personnel falling off to the ground | Rescuer sustained severe injuries |
2007 | UH-1H helicopter departed from RCSS airport for a Search and Rescue mission. The aircraft dispatched with two pilots, one engineer, and two rescue members. During the rescue operation, both rescuer and individual under rescue were serious injuries caused by the broken rescue wire rope | Rescuer and individual sustained severe injuries |
2000 | AS365N3 helicopter performed disaster search and rescue exercises. The aircraft dispatched with two pilots, one engineer, and two rescue members. During the hoist operation, the power plant was failed, then the helicopter crashed into the river | Two pilots were killed and rescuer sustained minor |
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Sen, FC., Huang, YH. (2020). Risk Analysis of Helicopter Search and Rescue Hoist Operation Accident. In: Wu, GY., Tsai, KC., Chow, W.K. (eds) The Proceedings of 11th Asia-Oceania Symposium on Fire Science and Technology. AOSFST 2018. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9139-3_62
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9139-3_62
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