Attention focuses on medevac flights after air ambulance industry endures its deadliest year By ROB DAVIS

By ROB DAVIS

Date published: 1/23/2005

Safety issues key for air ambulances

Before each AirCare medevac flight takes off from Shannon Airport, pilots have to make 32 checks. Are the rotors untied? Flight controls OK? Caution lights working?

Friday morning, at the start of a 12-hour shift, pilot Kurt Baden had to review the weather, inspect the helicopter and debrief the nighttime pilot.

Sitting around the kitchen table in the double-wide trailer where AirCare's Spotsylvania County operations are based, Baden led the safety briefing that marks each shift change.

In his calm pilot's voice, he reminded the crew of the routine: Always check blind spots, don't chat during takeoff or landing. He even--per FAA regulations--instructed the flight nurse and paramedic to have their tray tables stowed on takeoff.

"They talk about pilots living and dying by the checklist," Baden said. "If you miss one, you're setting yourself up for something."

Baden, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot with sandy brown hair and cool blue eyes, said he doesn't worry about the risks of his job, because of precautions such as the routine briefing.

It gets everyone focused on safety from the start of their shifts, he said. And it's just one way crew members of the medevac flight reduce the risks of what can be dangerous work.

But a recent spate of medevac crashes have some officials looking at ways to put even more emphasis on safety. Since 2002, more people have been killed in air ambulance crashes than aboard U.S. commercial airlines, though the helicopters travel just a fraction of the distance.

At least 11 helicopters were involved in accidents last year. Eighteen people died.

In August, a mother, her sick infant and three crew members were killed when a nighttime medevac flight crashed in the Nevada mountains. In July, four died aboard a South Carolina flight that had just left an accident on the interstate.

It was the deadliest year in the history of the air ambulance business.

"This accident rate, everybody has started to question it," said Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, an adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University. "It's just alarming."

The trend has continued this year. One person was injured in a Jan. 3 crash in Arizona. Three days later, a pilot was killed in Mississippi.

Date published: 1/23/2005