VAI Spotlight on Safety: The Ripple Effect The loss of one life affects hundreds more. In aviation, every decision matters. By Jim Bates Every accident in the helicopter industry, whether privately flown, in commercial operations, public services, or military missions, has the potential not only to claim lives but to impact a wide circle of people connected to those killed. Families are shattered, coworkers mourn lost teammates, businesses and organizations lose key members, and, often, entire communities feel the shock. The human toll of just one fatal accident is significant. When I was a young pilot, the concept of highlighting total mishap-free flight hours made sense to me. But I later realized what a small part of the aviation safety picture that number was. The absence of accidents and incidents doesn’t make us perfect, or even excellent. We still need to pick up patients and deliver them to the hospital without overtorquing. We need to move the external load without dropping it on a house. We must put the troops in the zone at an exact time and place while preserving all assets, personal and mechanical, for the next day’s missions. We must have multitiered systems that help us negotiate all external threats, especially weather. The purpose of our existence in aviation is to operate. We all have people who care about us and our careers, but not all of them fully understand what we do. Our loved ones would, however, agree that we need to survive every flight we’re on. I attended a friend’s retirement from the Marine Corps a few years back. He was a CH-46E Sea Knight (aka “Phrog”) pilot, and he began his speech by listing friends who couldn’t attend his ceremony because they’d been lost in helicopter mishaps. I’d never before heard anyone do this in a retirement ceremony, but it left a mark on me. He could have shared any other information about his career flying helicopters: total troops carried, total pounds of cargo moved, total flight hours, etc. I don’t know what his mindset was in writing that speech, but I could guess. The truth about many of those metrics is that, from the perspective of a humble rotary-wing aviator, someone always has more than you do, so it’s generally not worth talking about. But the people he couldn’t count at his ceremony were worth talking about. They were unique, invaluable, and incomparable. We seem to meet a significant portion of our coworkers’ family and friends at either their retirement ceremonies or their funerals. Before the next one of these events makes it onto our personal calendars, let’s look at who we might meet at either of those occasions. We might be struck by both the quality and quantity of the attendees. The Lives Touched by Accident Fatalities In March of this year, at VERTICON 2025, entrepreneur and former US Navy combat fighter pilot John Ramstead discussed the 71 lives that benefited after he was airlifted following a near-fatal horseback riding accident in 2011. It’s inspiring to hear the countless stories, like Ramstead’s, in which a helicopter and its crew created a positive outcome. And it’s not surprising how many people those positive outcomes can affect, because we know vertical aviation provides a substantial societal benefit. Accidents, conversely, have an opposite effect. Every person killed in a helicopter crash is part of a broader social network—a family, a workplace, a circle of friends, a community. To gauge the diameter of this network in numbers, let’s look at how many people are profoundly affected when one life is lost in an accident. While exact figures vary, bereavement studies suggest that each sudden death leaves behind, on average, about nine close relatives who grieve the loss. This number doesn’t include the many friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others who may also be significantly affected. In the context of a helicopter crash fatality, we can break down the affected groups as follows: Immediate and extended family: The deceased’s family members suffer the deepest loss. Spouses, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and others are directly affected by a single death. For example, if a pilot is killed, they may leave behind a spouse and young children; if a family of five is lost, an entire extended-family network is plunged into grief. These family members experience not just emotional trauma but often practical hardships, as well, including loss of the main household income, funeral costs, and more. Friends: Most people have about four close, traditional friends. Many have dozens. A 2024 report published by Pew Research states that 68% of American adults say they use Facebook, the top-ranked person-to-person social media platform. Earlier, in 2019, Pew determined the average adult Facebook user had a median of 200 Facebook friends. It’s debatable whether all social media friends or followers are truly interested in our mortality, or even whether they function as friends to us, but we can at least agree that our lives are of interest to them and that the loss of a life meaningful to them would have some effect. For true, real-life friends, a catastrophic event could hit as hard as losing a family member. Coworkers: This group includes both flight crew members and other staff in our organizations. A helicopter air ambulance company, for example, might have 14 employees (pilots, clinicians, and mechanics) at one operating base. A large US Coast Guard air station, meanwhile, has approximately 500 employees, military and civilian combined. Some of these organizations are very tight-knit, making the emotional toll of losing a member especially acute. The cascading effect includes coworkers covering the duties of the fallen, comrades experiencing survivor guilt, and sometimes a temporary reduction in critical-mission capabilities. Clients and passengers: Tourism, charter flights, and offshore transport operations are all examples of rotary-wing operations whose passengers’ main interest is getting safely from point A to point B. Some of the largest aircraft, such as an S-92, flying workers to and from offshore drilling platforms carry as many as 19 passengers on one flight. A sightseeing tour in a resort town might carry as few as 2 passengers. Regardless of how many we transport, all passengers surrender their trust to us when they commit to fly with us. Community and the public: Many people have community connections, be it from coaching, church attendance and service, philanthropy, or various volunteer or interest groups. Even those who never knew personally the people killed in a crash can experience sadness, or anxiety about air safety, following an accident, regardless of its media visibility. The January 2020 Calabasas, California, helicopter crash that took the lives of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant and eight others caused an outpouring of grief from millions of fans that is still being processed by some to this day. Surely, pilots who routinely fly popular entertainers, athletes, and other celebrities recognize the significance of every lift. And hopefully, every pilot appreciates the importance of the individuals, famous or not, both crew and passengers, entrusted to their care. While the above numbers are estimates, they powerfully illustrate that the human impact per fatality is far larger than one. When we fly, even with a crew of one and an empty cabin, we do it as if an arena of people who know us were all watching and expecting excellence. So, What Now? So, what do we do now that we know just how many people care about the outcome of every single flight we conduct? We boost our professionalism. Maybe we take it to heights it’s never been; maybe we elevate back to where it used to be before we let complacency develop. One day early in my time supporting search-and-rescue (SAR) and law enforcement missions for the US Coast Guard, a senior officer shared the advice to “always search like you’re searching for a family member.” On that day, I had yet to fly my first operational mission in the Coast Guard, so though I knew his message was about treating every mission seriously, I didn’t understand why I’d need the reminder. Why wouldn’t I treat every SAR flight seriously? They’re a big deal, with major consequences. Well, not always. Within six months of that talk, I’d already launched on various uncorrelated Mayday calls, as well as a “flare sighting” on July 4th that turned out to be fireworks, and a hoax. The temptation to become complacent based on the lack of legitimacy behind some of these missions was real. The purpose of the senior officer’s message became abundantly clear: do your best. Fight complacency with ferocity. The next time you stand duty on July 4th, that flare sighting may be legit, so be ready. My current career finds me serving as a simulator (sim) instructor supporting the training of rotary-wing student naval aviators and their instructors. I mentioned earlier that we get to meet our fellow aviators’ families and friends at either their retirements or their funerals, but there is one more place where someone like me gets to meet those proud people–when our students receive their “wings of gold.” It’s a joyous time when many students bring their parents, siblings, and friends into the sim to show off their skills and be the teacher for the first time. It’s also a reminder of who else is counting on us to get their son, daughter, or friend ready for whatever their future in aviation sends their way. Our instructor cadre has thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the successful operations these students have gone on to execute. We were also stopped dead in our tracks when we heard news of the February 2024 Marine CH-53E crash that killed all five onboard in a completely preventable accident. I remembered time spent training with both of the flying pilots. They were solid young professionals—some of the best of the latest generation of pilots. It was a cold reminder of the seriousness of every step in the process of training and, if anyone ever needed one, an antidote to complacency. The underlying message of anything spoken or written about flying is always the pursuit of perfection, even though we’re critical enough of ourselves to know we’ll never achieve it. So, we’re satisfied with excellence, as long as the debrief is thorough and sets up the next flight for the better. The details of the planning, briefing, execution, and debriefing generally stay within our professional circle. Our friends and families care about them, but what they care about most is the fact that we all return home safely from each flight. It turns out there are more people concerned with this outcome than we often consider. The more professionally we fly, the better chance we have of meeting everyone at a fellow flyer’s retirement ceremony and not their premature funeral. Jim Bates is an advanced helicopter simulator flight instructor with FlightSafety International Defense, currently teaching the TH-73. A former US Marine and Coast Guard officer, he served as instructor pilot, flight examiner, and director of safety at the US Coast Guard Aviation Training Center. He also leads Live Oak Solutions, providing safety consulting and education.
