Helicopters: Prime Cause of Fatalities in Exploration
Review of Canadian Mineral Exploration, Health & Safety Annual Report 2005

By Claudia Cochrane, P.Geo.
Cairnlins Resources Limited, Adjunct Professor, University of Western Ontario

The Canadian Mineral Exploration Annual Health and Safety Report for 2005 is now available on the Internet. (See: http://www.pdac.ca/pdac/advocacy/health-safety/health-safety.PDF.) All geoscientists and their employers, with or without an interest in mineral exploration, should access it. It makes for some sober reading.

The survey was started in 1982 in British Columbia (BC), by the BC Association of Mineral Exploration (AME BC), formerly the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines. This new Canada-wide survey has been conducted by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) and picks up on the BC experience. The object is to track existing health and safety trends across the country and to increase awareness for the future. Judging from the low number of responses, the PDAC have some distance to go: a total of 557 companies were contacted in this national survey, of which, only 93 reported back which is a 16% response rate.

Upon perusing this report, two issues were of particular concern. The
first, is the alarmingly high number of helicopter fatalities compared to other causes of exploration incidents (see pages 44-46). In fact,
helicopters are the prime cause of fatalities in exploration. Passengers getting in the way of rotors caused some of them. Others appear to be crashes, exacerbated by weather. It has been suggested to me that some field geologists may be directing the pilots to fly too close to outcrops for safety. In both cases, prevention in the form of protocols and education should not be difficult to implement.

And the subject of prevention brings me to the second issue. There has been no sign of a reduction in the number of exploration accidents or fatalities by all causes since 1990; indeed the fatalities have increased in number.

The year 2005 had the second-highest level of fatalities in the 26-year
period. And, of the 89 companies who responded to the question - "Do you have a safety program?" only 44 (49%) answered “Yes”. The immediate action required to reduce these tragedies is obvious and the authors are urging everyone in the Canadian exploration industry to participate fully in preventive education.

The Committee Chairs, Ian Paterson from the AME BC and Bill Mercer of the PDAC are to be commended for producing a fine, well-organized document, with information that is crucial to the welfare of every one of us. Let us hope they receive greater industrial participation henceforth. In the meantime, every exploration geoscientist should be impressing upon their employer the imperative need for health and safety training.

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Copyright 2006, Association of Professional Geoscientists of Ontario (APGO)