During his 40 years aerospace engineering career, Somen Chowdhury has worked in HAL India and in Bell Helicopter Textron Canada. He has made important contributions that had significant impacts. Most notable among these has been the setting up of the International Helicopter Safety Team with a goal to reduce civil helicopter accidents by 80% in ten years starting in 2006. This international initiative resulted in setting up helicopter safety initiatives across the world. This data based approach has helped in developing mitigation strategies resulting in average accident reduction rate world wide and by 30% in the USA over the last seven years.