Estimating the Impact of Crashworthiness Standards on Mortality and MorbidityEvents in the U.S. Army Rotary-Wing Aircraft Mishaps

摘要

It is generally agreed that it is desirable to provide modern militaryhelicopters with the maximum crashworthiness practical in order to reduce injury in helicopter crashes. Although crashworthy design features have been proven to be extremely effective in reducing morbidity and mortality, a penalty of increased weight and added procurement cost must be paid. Consequently, the degree of crashworthiness designed into an aircraft must be a tradeoff between economics, aircraft performance, and the perceived risk of injury. To help these judgments, it would be useful to develop a mathematical model capable of predicting morbidity outcomes for a given aircraft design. All crashes of five types of U. S. Army helicopters occurring between 1 October 1979 and 30 September 1991 were examined to determine crash conditions and morbidity and mortality outcomes. Analyses were conducted with logistic regression (LOGISTIC) for mortality and the fit of the model was considered.