In the wake of two fatal helicopter crashes in Kaua'i within a span of three days (while we were on the Big Island last weekend), both Julie and I were really concerned about the safety of helicopter tours in general. After all, we've been on several of these flights (including the ones on Kaua'i – one of them with Inter-Island Helicopters, which happened to have an accident last week). As a matter of fact, we were about to ride with Blue Hawaiian Helicopters in Waikoloa (having booked before seeing the story about Heli USA's crash on the evening news) before strong winds and poor visibility forced the cancellation of the tour. So we wouldn't be testing the seemingly bad karma that was in the air during our trip.The issue of helicopter safety has always been in our minds, but the pair of tragedies last week really hit close to home. So Julie started to do a little more research into the safety records of the Hawaiian helicopter companies, and both Julie and I were shocked to find out how frequently helicopter tour accidents have occurred.
A list of recent crashes can be found in this article from the Honolulu Advertiser here.
What made the accidents last week especially alarming was that they were after the release of a February 2007 report by the National Transportation and Safety Board assessing the safety of helicopter tours. You can read the NTSB report here.
So with the risks involved, this begs the question: why bother with helicopter tours?
In matters pertaining to waterfalls, it's an unfortunate fact that the majority of Hawai'i's most spectacular waterfalls are inaccessible due to private property, rugged terrain, closures, or just an overall lack of infrastructure to support visitation (such as trails). This leaves waterfall and nature enthusiasts like us with few options to experience some of the state's best natural scenery outside of the few established and popular (and thus crowded) areas.
That's where helicopters come in.
I'm sure in response to the recent bad press the helicopter touring companies are getting, additional measures will take place to try to reduce the likelihood of more of these tragedies. I fear this will probably diminish the tour experience as they'll fly to less-interesting places perhaps to reduce risk. Maybe they'll fly less often so you'll have less flexibility planning your vacation around these tours.
So if you're pondering an aerial tour of the Hawaiian Islands, it's still a buyer beware world. Helicopter tours will probably still continue as they have been as often as possible as they seem to be very profitable once you break in to the business. And we'll probably still go on a few more helicopter tours to round out our waterfalls collection in Hawai'i. It's just that we'll always have this fear whenever we sign up for one of these tours – hoping we're not struck by bad luck. I guess that's the nature of traveling or touring by air, but it's quite unsettling to say the least when we get these rude awakenings.
