Copyright 2006 Denver Publishing Company
By DEBORAH FRAZIER
Rocky Mountain News (Colorado)
The National Transportation Safety Board issued stringent safety recommendations for air ambulances Wednesday, after investigating 55 crashes that killed 54 people and seriously injured 19 others between 2002 and 2005.
Included in the NTSB’s inquiry, which focused on the crashes of 41 helicopters and 14-fixed wing aircraft, was the fatal flight of a Colorado air ambulance company in which a crew of three died in early 2005.
The number of crashes, fatalities and injuries “clued us in that there were safety issues” and led to the recommendations, said Lauren Peduzzi, spokeswoman for the NTSB.
The recommendations, made to the Federal Aviation Administration which is the rule-making agency, include:
* Impose the same safety rules for flights going to pick up patients as those with patients on aboard.
The NTSB said that 35 of the 55 accidents reviewed involved flights with no patients on board, including the Steamboat Springs-based Yampa Valley Air Ambulance crash near Rawlins, Wyo., on Jan. 11, 2005.
* Require that air ambulance operators have risk-evaluation procedures that assess weather, geography, aircraft safety and pilot fatigue before every flight.
The NTSB said the formal risk procedures might have prevented 13 of the 55 accidents, including the Yampa Valley Air Ambulance crash.
* Require flight-dispatch rules for operators that include updated weather information for pilots, aircraft tracking and arrival notification.
Those dispatch rules might have prevented 11 of the 55 accidents, including the Rawlins flight, which ran into heavy snows and crashed into a ridge 2 1/2 miles from the runway’s end.
* Require that helicopter air ambulances have Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems. The NTSB said that the warning systems could have prevented 17 of the 55 accidents.
The FAA already requires the warning systems on turbine-powered airplanes with six passengers.
The NTSB said that 49 percent of the accidents, including the Rawlins crash, happened at night when visibility was also hampered by weather.
The owner of Yampa Valley Air Ambulance, Bob Maddox, was not available for comment Wednesday.
Yampa Valley Air Ambulance stopped operations after the Rawlins crash, said Randy Kuykendall, chief of emergency medical services for the Colorado Department of Public Health.
Colorado has 17 air ambulance operators, but most use fixed-wing aircraft rather than helicopters, said Kuykendall.
Colorado starts licensing all air ambulance operators next month. The licensing standards, which don’t include the NTSB recommendations, go into effect July 2007, he said.
“The air ambulance industry has been moving in this direction,” Kuykendall said. “These rules won’t be a big shock in Colorado.”
Colorado-based air ambulances have had three crashes in the last 10 years, including the Rawlins accident, and nine people have died, he said.
Flight For Life, with bases in Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo and Frisco, is the largest air ambulance operator in the state.
Kathleen Mayer, Flight For Life program director at St. Anthony Hospital in Denver, said their air ambulances already follow the first three NTSB recommendations.
Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems cost about $65,000 to purchase and install, she said. Flight For Life is currently reviewing those and other ground-sensing systems.
The FAA has 60 days to respond to the NTSB’s recommendations.
Boosting safety
The National Transportation Safety Board recommends that the Federal Aviation Administration require air ambulance operators to:
* Impose the same safety regulations for flights with patients and those without patients.
* Create and follow a flight-risk evaluation program.
* Implement dispatch operations that include up-to-date weather for pilots and flight tracking.
* Install Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems on all aircraft and train personnel to use the equipment.