By Roma Khanna
The Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON — Medical helicopter flights long have been controversial, in part, because of their relatively high crash rates but also because studies show they are often used when other methods, such as ground ambulances, would work just as well.
The debate heightened last year when 28 pilots, patients and paramedics died on fatal flights.
A Houston Chronicle review of these crashes found that most of the 28 deaths took place in conditions known to be dangerous, primarily flights at night or in bad weather. In fact, a Chronicle review of 65 fatal flights that the NTSB has investigated since 1989 found that the majority of those crashes also occurred at night and in poor visibility.
The NTSB for the first time released the official causes of four medical helicopter crashes, including one that killed three near South Padre in February and another that killed four in Huntsville in June.
The latest NTSB findings show that weather conditions contributed to both 2008 Texas crashes as well as a third crash in Alaska in 2007. All three flights took place at night and in reduced visibility.
Investigators found that the June 8 crash in Huntsville occurred because of the “pilot’s failure to identify and arrest the helicopter’s descent in ... dark night conditions, low clouds, and fog.”
The operator that accepted that mission agreed to fly to Huntsville after Memorial Hermann’s Life Flight aborted its effort because of low clouds.
After three conversations between dispatchers and the pilot, the helicopter departed for Huntsville Memorial Hospital, according to the NTSB. With the patient, David Disman, aboard, it took off from the hospital helipad at 2:46 a.m. Within minutes it fell into a steep nose dive.
It sheared treetops as it crashed into the dense pines of Sam Houston National Forest.
Everyone on board died.
Disman’s son, Jason Disman, said he has been eager to have an official cause for the fatal crash and would like to see action on the NTSB’s recommendations.
“It’s a relief to have the investigation over,” Jason Disman said. “It’s important to me to see some changes in the rules for these flights.”
The South Padre crash occurred as a pilot and two paramedics flew to the island to pick up a patient.Moments from their landing site, they encountered low clouds and poor visibility and crashed into the Laguna Madre bay, the NTSB found.
‘A lengthy process’
The safety board plans to hold four days of hearings on air ambulance safety next month, after years of unheeded calls for tighter restriction on such flights.
For more than three years, the NTSB has been pressing a series of recommendations to require to require better safety equipment, such as terrain awareness and safety systems, and stricter rules for air ambulance flights.
Officials last year said that many of the 28 lost lives could have been saved if the Federal Aviation Administration had acted on their requests.
The FAA maintains that medical helicopter safety is a priority and that it is working with the industry to voluntarily improve safety while it works through the bureaucratic process to adopting more stringent rules.
“Rule-making can be a lengthy process,” said FAA spokesman Les Door.
“In the meantime, there is technology out there and nothing in FAA regulations to stop the industry from voluntarily adopting the technology and doing better safety training.”