In October 2014, five of the world’s leading helicopter operators combined forces to form HeliOffshore in a bid to put competitive issues to one side to collectively enhance safety in the global offshore transport industry through collaboration. In less than three years, membership of the group has rapidly increased to almost 100 organizations from across Europe, North America, Africa, Russia and Asia.

Last year, London-based HeliOffshore conducted a review of safety issues to establish priorities in leading and supporting the efforts of operators, manufacturers, training organizations, academics, and oil and gas companies to implement best practices and safety standards throughout the industry. Among the outcomes from this process are a newly launched strategy and safety performance model, aircraft-specific flight operations manuals and increased use of data to more objectively assess and improve the safety of operations.

“The model focuses on practical steps that can be taken to ensure system reliability and resilience,” explained HeliOffshore CEO Gretchen Haskins. “It also deals with operational effectiveness, covering goals such as avoiding obstacles and loss of control.”

The core elements of HeliOffshore’s collaborative approach involve information sharing, training and joint work on safety management systems, including best practices guidelines—all culminating in tangible action items that can be applied to day-to-day rotorcraft operations. Its safety review involved a thorough examination of a wide range of available accident data with analysis by subject experts drawn from the exceptional pool of experienced personnel from the member companies.

Through the conduit of HeliOffshore, the world’s four leading helicopter manufacturers have committed to the development of flight crew operating manuals for all their aircraft. Airbus and Sikorsky have already published manuals, and more are in the works.

Automation is another major focus of HeliOffshore’s outreach work. The group recently produced a series of training videos on the subject, each of which illustrates key do’s and don’ts for cockpit procedures, in recognition that automation poses both opportunities and challenges in modern helicopter operations. “Effectively, we need to think of automation as being another crew member, and we need to know what it is doing and what it is good at,” Haskins commented.

Some 40 experts in health and usage monitoring systems have been engaged in Helioffshore’s development of best practice for this key safety tool. The group hailed this week’s announcement that Sikorsky S-92s operated by the PHI group have become the first to use a new real-time HUMS system jointly developed by the operator, the manufacturer and Metro Aviation.

Other engagement with equipment makers has seen HeliOffshore pressing avionics manufacturers to introduce necessary software updates for helicopter terrain awareness systems (H-TAWS). This effort has been backed by research work on human factors aspects of H-TAWS conducted by the UK’s Cranfield University and Royal Holloway.

This week at the Heli-Expo show in Dallas, HeliOffshore and GE Aviation signed an agreement to develop and implement digital solutions for a new global safety data management system for offshore helicopter operators. The new system will be rolled out later this year, tapping GE’s Predix data and analytics tools. HeliOffshore’s existing InfoShare platform will allow members to share available data.

"The ability for multiple stakeholders to share safety data that helps target actions faster to enhance safety in the frontline is a huge step forward. GE's track record of delivery in the fixed-wing sector will help us to make this a practical reality for our industry," said Haskins.

HeliOffshore will hold its annual conference and general meeting in the Hungarian capital Budapest from May 12-15.