The International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) says it is slowly making progress toward its goal of reducing the number of helicopter accidents. Since 2006, when the IHST cooperative effort was formed, the average number of annual civil helicopter accidents worldwide has been 515, with the average trending downward at an annual rate of about 2 percent. The data collected by the IHST shows that from 1997 thru 2005, the average number of annual civil helicopter accidents worldwide was 570 and was trending upward at an annual rate of 2.5 percent.
While there is no solid data on worldwide flying-hour increases or decreases since the cooperative effort was launched, the IHST remains fairly confident that the accident rate is declining by at least as much as the accident count is dropping.
http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2014-02-10/ihst-number-helicopter-accidents-decline