Airbus Helicopters will make a retrofit crash-resistant fuel system (CRFS) available for its AS350B3 and EC130B4 single-engine models for the first time, will lower the price of the CRFS, and will provide customers who have already purchased the CRFS at a higher price for other models of Airbus H125 helicopters a credit for the price difference, the company announced Tuesday at Heli-Expo. Kits for the B3 and B4 will be available for customers beginning in early 2020.
The company is also offering training credits to customers who purchase CRFS retrofits from third-party providers for earlier H125 variants, including B2 and earlier models. Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even said it was the company’s “duty” to increase the safety of its helicopters.
Any Airbus H125 or H130 family model can be retrofitted with a CRFS either through Airbus or a third-party provider, based on model, and Airbus said it expects to have CRFS as factory standard equipment on all new-build H125s worldwide by 2020. H125s currently assembled by Airbus in Columbus, Mississippi, are already equipped with CRFS, and the H130 has come standard with CRFS since 2012.
“As an OEM it is our responsibility to take the lead on safety," said Chris Emerson, president of Airbus Helicopters Inc. “We’re looking to incentivize our customers. It costs money to take an aircraft out of service.”
Airbus Helicopters has been a defendant in several high-profile suits in recent years involving post-crash fires involving its aircraft. Most recently it was party to a $100 million settlement involving the crash of a 2013 AS350B3e in Colorado. The NTSB found that the lack of a CRFS on that helicopter contributed to the severity of the injuries of one of the survivors whose body was burned more than 90 percent in the post-crash fire.