Medical Helicopter Crashes Stir Concern

JUNE 29 - A fire broke out after two medical helicopters collided in Flagstaff, Ariz., killing six people. Sixteen people have died this year in medical helicopter crashes.

The fatal collision Sunday between two medical helicopters in Arizona was the sixth crash involving the emergency helicopters since May, making the last two months one of the deadliest periods in the history of the fast-growing industry.

JUNE 27 - An official examines a medical helicopter that crashed 30 miles outside Prescott, Ariz., injuring three crewmembers.

MAY 29 - A helicopter crashed on a hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., forcing the evacuation of maternity patients.

Sixteen people have died this year in seven crashes, which involved eight helicopters, according to federal data. Thirteen of the deaths have come since May.

About 750 medical helicopters are operating in this country, about twice the number flying a decade ago. Medical helicopters were once operated mostly by hospitals, but in recent years private companies, including some that are publicly traded, have come to dominate the industry.

The chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mark Rosenker, said the agency was greatly concerned about the spate of crashes. The board began to investigate the industry after a rash of accidents in 2004 and 2005.

In a report in 2006, it found that operators had failed to develop comprehensive flight risk programs, and that pilots often did not have adequate information about bad weather they might have encountered or equipment to alert them to dangerous terrain.

The board called for stricter flight rules and improved accident-avoidance equipment, among other recommendations.

The Federal Aviation Administration accepted all of the board’s recommendations, Mr. Rosenker said, but has put only some of them into effect.

“The latest spate of accidents has given the board concern that the F.A.A. may not be moving as quickly as necessary,” Mr. Rosenker said in a telephone interview on Monday evening.

Earlier on Monday, Mr. Rosenker told reporters in Flagstaff, Ariz., where the two helicopters collided on Sunday, that “we saw a small reduction” in accidents for a time. “But of late, we have started to see a trend that has brought it back to a disturbing level,” he said. Six people were killed and one critically injured in the crash, which occurred as each helicopter was on its final approach to Flagstaff Medical Center.

An F.A.A. spokeswoman said the recent accidents had stirred “attention and concern” in the agency. The changes it is putting into effect could include new weather requirements for flights and stricter rules for pilot instrument competency.

Some industry critics have questioned whether companies eager to profit from flights are sending helicopters to pick up patients who could have been transported more cheaply, and at less risk, by ground ambulance.

“The vast majority of patients could have done well in a ground ambulance,” said Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, a former flight paramedic who is a professor at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. “There is pressure to fly because most companies are owned by publicly owned entities.”

Aaron D. Todd, the chief executive of the Air Methods Corporation, the largest operator of medical helicopters in this country and the owner of one of those that crashed on Sunday, said the industry had made major safety strides in recent years. Mr. Todd also said it had been hard to buy some safety equipment, like night-vision goggles, because most of those supplies are going to troops in Iraq.

Mr. Todd and other industry officials said they were puzzled by the recent spate of crashes because there did not seem to be a common thread. Some occurred at night and others during the day; some were in inclement weather and others, like Sunday’s, were in sunny skies with calm winds.

Dawn Mancuso, the executive director of the Association of Air Medical Services, based in Alexandria, Va., said in a telephone interview that officials of her organization hoped to meet next week with the F.A.A. and to hold an industry meeting on safety soon.

Both helicopters in the crash on Sunday were Bell 407 models, the F.A.A. said. One, which landed on a mesa on the outskirts of Flagstaff, set off a wildfire that spread over 15 acres and took firefighters 90 minutes to contain.

Two days earlier, a medical helicopter crashed 30 miles outside Prescott, Ariz., injuring the three-crew members, one of them seriously. In early June, four people were killed when a medical helicopter crashed near Huntsville, Tex.

Three people were killed in May when a medical helicopter crashed near La Crosse, Wis., and another three died in a crash in February of a medical helicopter off South Padre Island in Texas.

In late May, maternity patients in Grand Rapids, Mich., had to be evacuated after a medical helicopter crashed on a hospital’s roof.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/us/01copter.html?hp

Fonte: Flight Safety Information 02/07/2008