Federal safety investigators are going over the heads of aviation regulators by urging leading helicopter manufacturers to install so-called black boxes that would help determine the cause of crashes like the one that killed former NBA star Kobe Bryant.

The National Transportation Safety Board asked the manufacturers – Airbus Helicopters, Bell, Leonardo, MD Helicopters, Robinson and Sikorsky – to act since the Federal Aviation Administration has not implemented a series of NTSB recommendations made in 2013 and 2015. Those recommendations were issued after NTSB investigators found the lack of recorded data hindered their understanding of several crashes that could have serious flight safety implications.

The NTSB cited seven helicopter investigations between 2011 and 2017 in which the lack of access to recorded data impeded their ability to identify and address potential safety issues.

They also identified five accidents in which investigators had the benefit of recorded data that was critical to understanding the circumstances of the crashes. The findings and analysis of these investigations resulted in three NTSB urgent recommendations and led the FAA to issue an emergency airworthiness directive affecting an entire fleet of helicopters.

Although the FAA declined to mandate recorders on those helicopters not already required to have them, they said they encouraged operators since 2005 to install the equipment on a voluntary basis. The NTSB, however, said since 86% of the 185 turbine-powered helicopter accidents it investigated between 2005 and 2017 had no recording equipment installed, the FAA actions were ineffective.

The safety board says flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders can help investigators determine the cause of a crash and prevent future accidents.

The helicopter that carried Bryant and crashed in January in Southern California did not have recorders.

(The Associated Press, NTSB contributed to this report.)

 

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