FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2002 — A US Army Chinook helicopter slammed into the sea off the Philippine coast today, killing nine of the 12 people on board. It was the third fatal US military-helicopter crash in a month. On February 14, two Marines were killed and two injured when their chopper crashed in California. A few days before that, one Army National Guard pilot was killed and another injured when their bird went down in Florida. On February 13, two Army Blackhawks crashed in Honolulu, Hawaii, killing six soldiers and injuring 11. On January 29, 14 American troops were hurt when their helicopter bit it in Afghanistan. Nine days earlier, also in Afghanistan, a military chopper hit a mountain, killing two and injuring five. On October 19, a Blackhawk went down in Pakistan, killing two. The list goes on.

Up-to-date statistics for US military-helicopter crashes are hard to come by, but it seems you cannot open a newspaper these days without reading about an Apache or a Cobra or an Osprey going down in some sort of fiery hell. A recent study by the US Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory found that between the years 1984 and 1992, helicopter crashes took the lives of 128 US military personnel and left another 26 permanently disabled. The 22 troops killed in the seven incidents listed above suggest that the War on Terror will only add to those figures.

Of course, most of us have no plans to leap out of a chopper on to the Philippine shore or go swooping down over the dark skies of Karachi in the immediate future, but that doesn’t mean we are not at risk. Helicopter safety — or lack of — affects civilians in this country, too. There are over 11,000 registered helicopters in the US, and many more that remain unregistered. According to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) figures, there were 1890 civilian-helicopter accidents in America in the decade between 1991 and 2000, resulting in 632 deaths. Last year, there were 182 crashes, with 51 fatalities.

And it gets worse. The fact is, not only do choppers go down a lot — per departure, helicopters are 10 times more likely to crash than airliners — but they tend to kill you when they do. Almost one in five helicopter accidents involves a fatality. So, knowing all this, why do we continue to fly in them? Military personnel, state troopers, and TV traffic reporters, of course, have little choice in the matter. The truly puzzling thing is why so many people willingly climb aboard these jittery, glitch-prone machines.

Indeed, the most alarming recent trend is the increase in fatalities involving the field of scenic helicopter tours. While the industry accounts for only 2.5 percent of all registered US helicopters, 13 percent of civilian deaths result from scenic heli-tours. An NTSB study reveals that there were 28 heli-tour-related deaths and serious injuries last year, a staggering 460 percent increase from 1996. Four of the five deadliest civilian-helicopter crashes in the US over the last decade have involved scenic heli-tours.

The Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, an environmental group, has compiled a blow-by-blow record of US helicopter crashes over the past 13 years — it makes for chilling reading. In 1999, the group reports, a heli-tour pilot, attempting to give his passengers a closer view of Mount Rushmore, flew pretty much straight into Abraham Lincoln’s nose, killing two and injuring three. Some other highlights:

September 29, 1992, Niagara Falls, New York: "Midair collision between 2 scenic tour helicopters." Four killed.

March 17, 1999, Gulf of Mexico: "Pilot ... crashed upside down into the Gulf." Two killed.

June 9, 1999, Juneau, Alaska: "Helicopter crashed into glacier." Seven killed.

July 21, 2000, Kahului, Hawaii: "Helicopter crashed into ... volcano." Seven killed.

Grim stuff, to be sure, but help is on the way. A Phoenix, Arizona–based company called Simula Government Products is in the process of developing a helicopter air bag — just like the ones we have in our Nissan Sentras and Ford Explorers. Popularmechanics.com reports that the so-called Cockpit Airbags System (CABS) "can turn fatal headstrikes into survivable ones." Hoorah!

Before we go booking ourselves a ticket on the nearest sightseeing whirligig, however, we might want to heed the words of Simula’s technical director: "[C]ompletely adequate delethalization [is] impossible." What he means is, helicopter crashes are likely to kill you. Better yet, consider the following incident:

Here in Boston, back in 1995, a State Police helicopter crashed into the Harvard Sailing Center on Memorial Drive, killing two state troopers and two AT&T technicians. "So mashed was the wreckage," read a report in Tech Talk, the MIT paper, "that [recovery crews] could see only two victims at first. But as they pulled them free, cutting their safety belts, they noticed two more victims. They managed to pull three of the men out, but the fourth was pinned in the wreckage."

Personally, from now on, I’ll be getting my sightseeing kicks on the Swan Boats.