Amy Wilder is a private pilot with more than two decades of experience as a writer and editor in a career spanning journalism, marketing, and communications. 
She has worked in aviation journalism since 2023, combining a lifelong passion for flight and a love of the aviation community with a penchant for storytelling. As a licensed pilot, she brings firsthand insight to the stories she covers, lending an authentic, on-the-ground perspective to industry coverage.
She holds a Master of Arts in Eastern Classics and a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts, both from St. John&#039;s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, along with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Culture.

Writer

Amy Wilder

Loss-of-visual-reference accidents are more likely to involve helicopters than airplanes, according to a series of Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) investigations. Reviewing 5,177 Canadian airplane and rotorcraft accidents recorded from 2000 to 2021,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/2025-06/A21C0038-brochure-EN.pdf">investigators found a total of 95 involving a loss of visual reference</a>: 68 of 4,378 airplane accidents versus 27 of 799 helicopter accidents—a rate more than double that of airplanes.
The TSB has linked part of that disparity to Canadian regulations that do not require commercial helicopter operators to train pilots or equip aircraft to recover from inadvertent flight into instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC), relying instead on an avoid-at-all-costs strategy that investigators have called unrealistic.
Four recommendations were issued by the TSB to Transport Canada as a result of these investigations: require commercial helicopter operators to ensure pilots possess the skills to recover from IIMC; require implementation of technology to assist with IIMC avoidance and recovery; require single-pilot operators under Subpart 604 and Part VII of the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs) to develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) based on corporate knowledge and industry best practices; and enhance requirements for helicopter operators conducting reduced-visibility operations in uncontrolled airspace.
Some Canadian operators have voluntarily gone beyond current regulatory minimums, the TSB found. It cited enhanced winter training, close monitoring of pilots for pressure to fly in marginal conditions, simulator-based IIMC recovery training, and dispatching aircraft equipped with radar altimeters and synthetic vision systems as measures already adopted by some operators.
The recommendations draw heavily on three recent TSB investigations into VFR helicopter missions that lost visual reference in flat-light and whiteout conditions. All three resulted in accidents—<a href="https://www.tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/rapports-reports/aviation/A21C0038/eng/a21c0038.pdf">one fatal</a>.
On April 25, 2021, a Great Slave Helicopters 2018 Airbus Helicopters AS350B2 departed a remote polar bear research camp on Russell Island, Nunavut, on a day VFR flight to Resolute Bay Airport, 87 nm to the northeast. On board were the pilot, an aircraft maintenance engineer, and a biologist. Approximately 45 minutes later, while crossing Griffith Island near its highest terrain, the helicopter struck snow-covered ground about 370 feet above sea level, shortly before reaching a ridgeline near the island’s high point, 12 nm from Resolute Bay. The crash and post-impact fire destroyed the helicopter, killing all three aboard. Investigators determined that the uniformly snow-covered, featureless terrain, an overcast sky, and nearby snowfall likely produced flat-light and whiteout conditions, and that the wreckage orientation was consistent with the pilot attempting a 180-degree right turn after losing visual reference.
The pilot held a commercial helicopter license with approximately 4,050 total flight hours but only 16.4 hours of instrument flight time, just 3.5 of which had been logged in the five years before the accident. It was his first winter or spring deployment operating above the tree line from a remote camp.
Investigators found that no requirement existed for the pilot to be trained in IIMC recovery, nor for the aircraft to carry equipment that could assist with it. The helicopter did not have a radar altimeter, autopilot, or stability augmentation system. None of these are mandated for day VFR operations. The operator had adopted the avoidance-only philosophy. According to the report, management believed that IIMC training could make pilots overconfident about flying in deteriorating weather and considered VFR-only pilots unlikely to have the proficiency to hand-fly an instrument recovery.
A 2015 accident involving a predecessor company also involved an AS350 in flat-light conditions near Deadhorse, Alaska, and prompted an internal review that found the original company’s manual had required flight instruments and night-VFR-style planning in whiteout conditions. Those requirements were no longer part of the operations manual by the time of the 2021 accident.
The advisory noted that SOPs, while required for multi-crew helicopter operations, remain optional for single-pilot operators under the CARs, despite being particularly useful when a pilot lacks experience in a given scenario. The report called reliance on an avoid-at-all-costs strategy unrealistic in regions like the Arctic, where flat-light and whiteout conditions can develop quickly.
The TSB also pointed to a gap between helicopter and fixed-wing requirements for reduced-visibility operations in uncontrolled airspace. Rotorcraft may be authorized to operate in visibility as low as half a statute mile below 1,000 feet agl—half the one-statute-mile minimum required of fixed-wing aircraft. Unlike airplane operators under the same authorization, they need not carry an artificial horizon, directional gyro, or GPS, nor complete annual IFR training.
Citing the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), the report noted that one to two hours of annual instrument flight training, ideally supplemented with quarterly training, would give a VFR pilot a chance of surviving an IIMC encounter. From 1988 to 2022, the RCAF recorded 27 helicopter incidents attributed to loss of visual reference or IIMC; in 19 of those, IIMC and instrument flight training, procedures, or instrumentation were credited with contributing to a successful recovery.

News and information on safety procedures and concerns.

TSB Canada: Helicopter Loss-of-visual-reference Accidents Twice as Likely

Helicopters more than twice as vulnerable to loss of visual reference accidents than airplanes

A TSB Canada report finds helicopter loss-of-visual-reference accidents are more than twice as common as in fixed-wing aircraft, tied to a gap in IIMC rules.

TSB: Rotorcraft More Prone To Loss-of-visual-reference Accidents

2024 Corporate Aviation Leadership Summit

Kerry Lynch

News and issues relating to international air transport and cargo carriers, national airlines and regional airlines, including aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

News and issues relating to business, corporate and private aviation, primarily regarding turbine-engine-powered airplanes and helicopters. Subjects include aircraft, engines, maintenance, operations, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security, and training.

Homendy spoke during ALPA’s Air Safety Forum

NTSB Chair Expresses Concern over Safety Bill Inaction

Jessica Reed

News and issues about aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), covering all segments of the aviation industry; and modifications for aircraft and engines. Subjects include product support of aircraft, engines and avionics, MRO company mergers, acquisitions, announcements and personnel, Airworthiness Directives, Supplemental Type Certificate approvals and other topics.

News and issues concerning general aviation, specifically airplanes and helicopters powered by piston and alternative engines (i.e., non-turbine powered aircraft). Subjects include aircraft, engines, personnel, acquisitions, accidents, safety, security and training.

Deal gives Veryon 200+ new customers

Veryon Acquires Safety Software Firm Polaris Aero

Altitude and course deviation, traffic proximity remain top categories

ACSF Data Shows Stable Bizav Risk Amid 2026 Pressures

Essential news and analysis on the defense aerospace business. Your trusted source for new and ongoing programs and requirements in military aircraft (manned and unmanned), engines, avionics, weapons and associated systems, including ground-based air defense.

Aircraft remained within separation guidance but neared each other after the presidential helicopter was unable to alert ATC

Faulty Comms Preceded Marine One/Envoy Close Call

Graham leaving agency within months of confirmation to another term

NTSB Vice Chair Michael Graham To Retire October 2

Stuart “Kipp” Lau

News about bills, laws, regulations and other governmental decisions affecting aviation and aerospace. Topics include FAA re-authorizations, taxes on fuel and aviation activities, environmental legislation, ICAO decisions, governmental mediation of labor conflicts and World Trade Organization disputes and decisions.

UK CAA concerned over rise in unstable approaches continuing to land

AINsight: Go-arounds Are a Normal and Expected Outcome

Charlotte Bailey

News about environmental issues relating to aircraft operations, including noise issues, emissisions, and regulations. See Fuel for biofuel.

News and issues relating to the aerospace industry that are related to the science, engineering and business of flight in space involving civil, industrial and military applications, and similar topics related to flight in the atmosphere of the Earth that are not covered more directly by other AINonline subject channels. In other words, both astronautical and aeronautical subjects, except for those aeronautical topics that are specifically covered elsewhere on this website.

More In Safety

NTSB Chair Expresses Concern over Safety Bill Inaction

Homendy spoke during ALPA’s Air Safety Forum

Veryon Acquires Safety Software Firm Polaris Aero

Deal gives Veryon 200+ new customers

ACSF Data Shows Stable Bizav Risk Amid 2026 Pressures

Altitude and course deviation, traffic proximity remain top categories

Faulty Comms Preceded Marine One/Envoy Close Call

Aircraft remained within separation guidance but neared each other after the presidential helicopter was unable to alert ATC

NTSB Vice Chair Michael Graham To Retire October 2

Graham leaving agency within months of confirmation to another term

AINsight: Go-arounds Are a Normal and Expected Outcome

UK CAA concerned over rise in unstable approaches continuing to land

EASA: Atmospheric Icing Insufficiently Understood

European air safety agency calls for more comprehensive studies into phenomenon

Embry-Riddle Introduces ‘Safer Skies’ Video Podcasts

First episode features three-time space shuttle veteranJanet Kavandi

AIN Products

SUBSCRIPTIONS

RESOURCES

ABOUT AIN