I am thinking about taking a flight from Las Vegas to the Grand
Canyon.  There are helicopter and fixed wing flights.  What is the
rate of fatalities on these flights compared to a scheduled commercial
airline flight?

Hello!  

Sounds like you're working on a wonderful vacation plan. I hope this
information will assist you.

A definitive statistical fatality percentage cannot be obtained
because of the lack of available data about the actual number of
aircraft used either full-time or part-time for air tour flights.
However, I am able to list incidents over the past five years, give
you best estimate stats by an industry association, a government
report on the safety of air tour operators, plus a document which can
help you select a charter flight operator.


The USATA (U.S. Air Tours Association) is a voluntary membership body
whose members carry the greatest percentage of Grand Canyon passengers
each year. These statistics are not broken down into fixed wing craft
vs. helicopters.

"Steve Bassett, USATA president, said that in 10 years, association
members have flown 600,000 tours and carried 4.5 million passengers to
the Grand Canyon. Bassett said there were seven fatal air tour
accidents involving tourists in that time, all outside Grand Canyon
air space.

He calculated that air tour companies during that 10-year period have
a safety record of 0.98 fatal accidents per 100,000 hours flown.

Among commercial airlines, the average number of fatal accidents per
year from 1990 to 1999 was .025 per 100,000 hours flown, according to
the NTSB." San Diego Union Tribune, August 21, 2001, Ken Ritter,
Associated Press.
http://www.uniontrib.com/news/state/20010821-1343-wst-helicopt.html


According to NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) statistics,
there are been 16 accidents involving fixed wing and rotary wing
aircraft during Grand Canyon flights during the past five years. Three
of the incidents may be discounted, because they involved balloons or
experimental aircraft. Five of those accidents involved fatalities.

Fixed Wing Accident Fatalities: 3 Accidents, 6 Persons
Helicopter Accident Fatalities: 2 Accidents, 7 Persons

Additional non-fatality accidents:

Fixed Wing Aircraft: 3
Helicopters: 5

You may obtain the query results and individual incident reports
listing carriers and details by using the form located at:

http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/query.asp#query_start

I used the maximum date range, 01/01/1997 - 05/20/2002, State -
Arizona, Keywords - Grand Canyon.


The Federal Aviation Administration offers a document entitled
"Chartering An Aircraft" which details the saftey questions which
should be considered when selecting an air charter or air tour
operator.

Additional Statistical Databases for reference:

FAA

From the main page, 

http://www.faa.gov 

Select the Safety Data link under the category Aviation Safety. You
must agree to the site Terms of Service on the next page in order to
continue. Select the Databases link. Select the FAA Accident/Incident
Data System (AIDS). Under the Data heading, select the AIDS Data Query
Tool, which opens automatically in a new browser window.

NASA - Preliminary Accident Reports Air Taxi Since Year 2000 - Select
Choose by location to see incidents involving the Grand Canyon.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?L229527E


An official NTSB Report: Safety of Air Tour Industry in the United
States, was prepared in January, 1995. A scanned copy of the 60 page
printed report in PDF format is available.  Flight fatality incidents
in 1994 prompted this report. The analysis and conclusions were the
primary factor in changes to FAA regulations in 1995 in regard to the
routes and flight rules that are in force during Grand Canyon flights
today.

"...The FAA set a yearly cap of 90,000 sightseeing flights and imposed
no-fly zones over wide swaths of the canyon. In April [2001] it placed
more restrictions on flights that originate in Las Vegas, curbing the
scenic routes operators fly to and from the canyon. "

http://amelia.db.erau.edu/reports/ntsb/sir/SIR95-01.pdf

Additional resources:
Helicopter Association International - http://www.rotor.com
NTSB - http://www.ntsb.gov/
Grand Canyon - http://www.nps.gov/grca/index.htm

I hope this these search results provide the information you're
seeking. If needed, please feel free to ask for clarification of any
portion.

Thank you for using Google Answers.

~larre-ga

---

Clarification of Answer by larre-ga on 20 May 2002 14:06 PDT

Additionally, I've located a copy of the FAA's Charter An Aircract document online:

http://www.faa.gov/fsdo/far/howto.htm

~Laare

This was an extremely well-crafted response!  It was right on point,
very clearly written, and submitted soon after I posted my query.  It
even included personal experience along with cited authoritative
sources.  You should use this one as a poster child for Google
Answers!

There have been a few commercial airline crashes in or near the Grand
Canyon.  In 1956 a United Airlines DC-7 and a TWA Constellation
collided midair killing 128 people
(http://consumerlawpage.com/article/aviate.shtml).  At that time,
planes were not required to file flight plans, and each was not aware
the other plane was in the area.

In 1986, a sightseeing helicopter and a twin-engine airplane collided
over the canyon, killing 25 people.  The helicopter was flying below
the rim, and came up underneath the plane in such a way that neither
craft saw the other.  Flights are no longer permitted below rim level.
After both crashes, new regulations were implemented to avoid  similar
crashes in the future.

In 1995 a plane lost an engine, killing 8
(http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N3/briefs1.03w.html).  That could happen
anywhere.

In 2001, a helicopter hit an outcropping of rock, killing 6
(http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Aug-11-Sat-2001/news/16753135.html).

There have been some other crashes involving non-commercial aircraft
(private or military planes) in and near the Grand Canyon.

I personally have flown between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon several
times in fixed-wing aircraft, just because it was the fastest way to
get in & out.  It tends to be a bumpy ride, but the scenery is great. 
Or you could go to the IMAX theatre and see it that way.

I saw a documentary on National Geographic recently about the same
choppers you are talking about (in fact a lot of the show was
dedicated to the Grand Canyon ones). Nat Geo had a lot of positive
things to say about the safety of these machines, and personally, i
was impressed with the amount of engineering that they explained had
gone into making these vehicles ultra-silent, efficient, etc.

i guess you can rest assured about the reliablilty of these crafts. i
would =)

You may be interested in http://www.amigoingdown.com

This site allows you to enter your flight information, and it 
gives you the probability of... well, you know.

Thanks once again to everyone for their comments.  The answer from the
responding answerer, plus other comments, gave me enough confidence to
take a flight today.  As I write I'm watching a video taken on board
by the charter company, Maverick.  I highly recommend them.  They were
very professional in every way.  This was no ride with a guy chewing
tobacco flying out of a small tin shack on a rusty old chopper.

The comment above about the "amigoingdown.com" site was very
interesting, but not at all germane to my query.  I was asking about a
helicopter charter.  The site deals with fatality rates for scheduled
commercial flights -- which is what my query wanted to COMPARE to, but
Maverick and its competitors aren't in their radar screen.