Rotor Downwash

An incident at Derriford Hospital resulted in a passing member of the public suffering fatal injuries caused by the downwash from a landing helicopter.

Aircraft Accident Report AAR 2/2023 - Sikorsky S-92A, G-MCGY - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


Rotor downwash and outwash are a known problem and need to be considered at all landing sites. The CAA has recently published CAP 2576 that assesses downwash from eVTOL air vehicles. Their downwash is likely to be more intense than classic helicopters due to a combination of higher disc loading and interactions between their individual rotor downwash.

The author of CAP 2576A, Dr Richard Brown, gave a fascinating  RAeS 2023 Cierva Lecture on this topic.
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CAP 2576 - 20721 (caa.co.uk)