THE CASE FOR SUPPLEMENTAL COCKPIT CREW RESTRAINT IN MILITARY HELICOPTERS

Research by the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy during the past 30+ years has brought about the safest and most crashworthy helicopters the military has ever operated. One area, however, that has received minimal attention is the prevalence of pilot/copilot secondary strikes to surrounding structure during potentially survivable crash impacts. The data reveal that secondary strikes of the head and upper torso against rigid structure account for well over half of the major injuries and fatalities sustained by Army and Navy aviators during otherwise survivable crash impacts. These injuries/fatalities are occurring despite use of the current operational 4- and 5-point restraint systems designed to restrain aviators in a crash. Crash dynamics of newer, high-performance military helicopters are often more complex and more unpredictable than those of lower-performance machines of the past. This paper describes a number of proposed research solutions, in various stages of maturity, which specifically address the problem of secondary cockpit strikes and offer the potential for major reductions in the current injury/fatality statistics.