Pilot dies from toxic fumes

[The Collective]

I've been working in Canada for the past 2 seasons, and in the Oil/Gas industry, your passengers are typically required to wear portable gas monitors that test the air for oxygen content, as well as H2S and carbon monoxide. I was quite surprised to find that the alarms on those monitors trigger all the time when in the R44, as CO levels rise up to around 80ppm when in a hover or on the ground (doors closed, heater off, no tailwind).

The alarms on their monitors are set to 30ppm (+/- 5ppm, depending on which province they work in), which is considered the exposure limit above which long term health effects are possible. I have a few thousand hours on Robinsons, and have certainly spend hundreds of those at ground idle. I couldn't find out at what level the built in electronic CO monitor in the R44 is triggered, but I think it is around 100ppm.


I don't fly R44s any more for now, but this is something that might be worth investigating if you do spend a lot of time in them.