USHST Announces All-hands Meeting at Heli-Expo
USHST will hold an all-hands meeting at this year's Heli-Expo to discuss new safety enhancements.
The USHST 56 Seconds to Live video was released in 2021 shortly after the helicopter crash that killed Koby Bryant. It offers a graphic depiction of how the critical 56-second time period—based on a USHST study of 221 fatal helicopter accidents—feels to a desperate helicopter pilot.

The United States Helicopter Safety Team (USHST) will hold a meeting at the upcoming HAI Heli-Expo 2023 to discuss the USHST’s five new safety enhancements. The meeting, open to all Heli-Expo attendees, will be held from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. on March 6 in room B303 in the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

USHST is a volunteer team of U.S. government and industry stakeholders that formed to improve the safety of civil helicopter operations in the national airspace system. The group released its first safety enhancements in 2017 after analyzing more than 100 fatal helicopter accidents. Those 16 enhancements range from recommended preflight inspections to understanding basic helicopter aerodynamics and safety culture and professionalism.

Its five new and additional enhancements concern the promotion of conservative go/no-go decision-making; education on the detection of hazards from low-level operations, including wire and tower strikes; night operations risk management and hazards, including loss of control; fatigue; and training for operations in adverse winds and related performance issues at low airspeed. 

USHST welcomes individual stakeholder assistance in further developing these enhancements, either at the meeting or by contacting the organization at safety@ushst.org.