3 Killed in Medical Helicopter Crash in South Carolina

Three more rescuers lose their lives in their work environment. No details are available to me at this time about the weather. Looking at conditions now and in a timetable fashion, inclimate weather may have been in the area. Four miles and the airport is in site--more than a fair share of pilots have seen the lights on approach and not reached the airport runways safely. Damn shame.... lakothope

GEORGETOWN, S.C. — A medical transport helicopter crashed in coastal South Carolina, killing all three people on board, authorities said Saturday.

The company that owned the helicopter, Addison, Texas-based OmniFlight, said a pilot, flight nurse and paramedic were on board when it crashed Friday night.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators were en route to the scene Saturday. Agency spokesman Peter Knudson says no patients were on board the helicopter, which had dropped off a patient at about 9:35 p.m. Friday in Charleston, about 60 miles southwest of Georgetown County.

In a statement, the company confirmed that the American Eurocopter AS350B2 took off from Charleston around 11 p.m. Friday and was headed to Conway, a city about 50 miles north of Georgetown.

Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen says the pilot last radioed air traffic control at 11:05 p.m., saying the crew was about four miles from an airport near Charleston and had it in sight.

The helicopter crashed shortly thereafter, at about 11:30 p.m., Knudson said.

"Omniflight is deeply saddened by the tragic loss of its crew members and wishes to express its deepest regrets and sincerest condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives," the company said.

Charter Crashes Expose Oversight Failures

The following article on the failure of the FAA to monitor charter jet services is another problem that has plagued the administration of aircraft services for hire in the U.S. On another post, I referred to an article on the safety of air ambulances and the problems of the NTSB, trying to get its ideas across to the FAA for implementation. Apparently, there is something driving the FAA to ignore safety recommendations from valid, organizations. When I started flying in the 1980's, I had read articles about how the NTSB was "kicked to the curb" by FAA leaders and that actually, the NTSB is only supposed to make recommendations on safety. Good idea if they were listened to by the FAA ... lakotahope
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By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

Aviation regulators have missed blatant pilot training violations, failed to identify illegal charter flights and allowed planes to fly that should have been grounded, according to government accident records reviewed by USA TODAY.

At least six recent fatal crashes of charter jets and small airliners have exposed failures in the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight of for-hire air carriers, according to accident files and investigators. In nearly every case, the failures were discovered by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and not the FAA.

Charter operators fly planes on a for-hire basis and are considered the air taxis of the aviation system, scheduling flights at the whim of customers. The flights accounted for 249 deaths between 2003 and 2008. Large commercial airline accidents killed 107 people during the same period.

"We've got serious violations of the public trust," said former NTSB board member Kitty Higgins.

Recent NTSB investigations into crashes that killed 13 people found numerous problems with enforcement. In each case, the fatal accidents happened on planes with nine or fewer seats:

• After the crash of a jet near Milwaukee on June 4, 2007, that was carrying a lung transplant team from the University of Michigan, NTSB investigators discovered that the charter company's chief pilot, the captain of the fatal flight, was a convicted drug runner. Company training records for pilots were also falsified.

• The crash March 4, 2008, of a jet in Oklahoma City revealed that a helicopter company helped arrange a jet flight for businessmen in spite of the fact that it was authorized to fly only helicopters.

• The investigation into a Dec. 23, 2003, crash of a chartered jet in Helendale, Calif., revealed that the plane should have been grounded. One FAA inspector had ordered that the plane not fly because the owner could not document maintenance, but another inspector gave the OK.

The issue has come up repeatedly in other accidents. The NTSB found that "inadequate oversight" by the FAA had contributed to the cause of a 2003 accident in Teterboro, N.J., in which a chartered jet skidded off the runway.

The FAA's Flight Standards Service director, John Allen, did not address the specific accidents but called the agency's inspections "thorough." He said it can be difficult to prove wrongdoing unless inspectors witness illegal acts. The agency is revamping oversight of smaller carriers, he said.

The FAA cannot discuss personnel matters but would take action if it found problems, spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said.

In some cases, inspectors blamed heavy workloads. The inspector in the Milwaukee crash case told the NTSB that he oversaw 19 companies and described his workload as "busy."

Air Traffic Control to be Enhanced by Satellites

We are dawning on a new age--Satellites to monitor and direct air traffic. This will occur over the Gulf of Mexico at this stage of enhancement. GPS will certainly be valuable in this arena, however, I recently read that the U.S. geosynchronous GPS system is on its way to failure. Many satellites are at the end of their life cycle with replacements hard to come by. Certainly, the U.S. Government doesn't plan on allowing this system to degrade so far as to be worthless to our Military! At the same time, the civilian sector is depending on the GPS system more than ever before. In cars, planes, cell phones--it is impregnated in our society at our basic level... GPS

The planes I flew, never had GPS installed, only the Loran C system that was designed with fixed ground based antennas in a grid that covered most of the coastline of the U.S. Of course, I also had my map, E6-B, protractor, ADF, etc., handy!!! Times have Changed! ...... lakotahope

Aircraft in Gulf to be tracked using satellites

By JOAN LOWY
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Government officials say air traffic controllers in December will begin using satellite-based technology to track aircraft in a 240,000-square mile area of the Gulf of Mexico.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Randy Babbitt, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, said Monday the move is a significant step toward replacing an air traffic control system based on World War II era radar technology with a GPS-based system.

Babbitt called the new system one of the biggest steps forward in technology in a generation.

The new system will allow airliners to fly more direct routes rather than from radar beacon to radar beacon as they do now. That could save billions of dollars every year in time and fuel, as well as cut pollution.

Air Ambulances and NTSB/ FAA

Air Ambulances are integral in saving lives. They respond more quickly than land based vehicles--given the weather is adequate to fly. On optimum days, the air ambulance can fly over congested roads, flooded fields, rivers and any other object that is less than 12,000 feet tall. Mostly. However, are all flights justified? Most people will say that not all evacuations are necessary by air. Medicare and insurance pays a huge chuck of any flight. A valid point in the following article, by Nashville's Channel 5, mentions that the Medivac air carriers qualify to receive medicare payments, by following certain safety guidelines. Certainly, safety recommendations made by the NTSB should be studied and followed by the air carriers, eventhough the FAA will probably not go along with the NTSB. Many, many times have I seen NTSB recommendations dumped by the side of the road by the FAA.

The FAA is more in league with business parameters than they are with the safety of these businesses. There is a fault in the way the FAA can eliminate safety mechanisms in order to achieve a more business friendly environment. ...... lakotahope
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Just how safe are air ambulances? A federal panel has just released a highly-touted list of ways it says will make the skies safer for helicopters that carry people to the hospital.

Will the proposed changes really make a difference? They may. As consumer investigator Jennifer Kraus found, it will likely take a while.

When seconds count, a medical helicopter can be the quickest way to get to the hospital.

Last year was the deadliest year on record for medical helicopters - 29 people died in eight separate accidents across the country. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators studied what went wrong in these deadly crashes and came up with a list of safety recommendations.

The NTSB uses medical helicopter services to conduct more pilot training, institute safety management programs, use flight data recorders, night vision goggles and autopilot systems in their choppers.

Dr. John Morris heads up Vanderbilt's LifeFlight program which has not had a crash since it started 25 years ago.

"The question is, 'How can we save more lives?'" said Morris. "Clearly it gets the entire industry focused on what can we do better and how can we make our industry safer."

His concern though is that the NTSB's recommendations are simply recommendations. To make them requirements for all air ambulances, they have to be adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA which oversees all things relating to aviation is notoriously slow. In fact, industry insiders said it will likely be at least another year before the FAA takes action.

There are no guarantees the FAA will even do anything with the recommendations. Three years ago, the NTSB came up with its first set of recommendations and the FAA still has not adopted them.

Air Evac is another air ambulance service that operates in Middle Tennessee.

The NTSB's latest recommendations came almost one year to the day after an Air Evac chopper crashed in Indiana, killing all three crew members.

Air Evac's president, Seth Myers, said in the last year, his company has taken steps on its own to make its operation safer, and that it's already taking steps to implement some of the NTSB's ideas.

"The NTSB is there to create awareness and, I believe, they've done that. That is their charge, is to make both Congress and the industry and the FAA aware. I believe they've done their part in doing that," said Myers.

Others said while awareness is good, action is better and requiring everyone to follow the same rules will help save more lives.

"I think these recommendations are a great first step. If we could get these recommendations into rule, we would have a much safer transportation environment nationwide," said Morris.

The NTSB also recommended that Medicare only pay for flights run by air ambulance programs that meet certain safety standards established by Medicare.....newschannel5.com