PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - HEMS - Regulations and saving life
View Single Post
Old 25th Feb 2005, 14:10
  #224 (permalink)  
Devil 49
"Just a pilot"
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Jefferson GA USA
Age: 74
Posts: 632
Received 7 Likes on 4 Posts
Some thoughts, tangentally related to the unfortunate event that originated this thread-
Engine failures aren't necessarily killers; howve, pilot failure is routinely fatal. The number of engines doesn't change the accident rate.
Years ago I saw some numbers from the US Army regarding "Class A" accidents. 90% of engine failures, at night and/ or IMC were successful.
IF, and that's big "if," this event was a power failure, it seems it was hardly in the worst circumstance for it- the surrounding area looked large, clear and flat. I'm not speculating on cause by any means- engine failures are never like the chop in training....
But, there's a problem in the industry. We train new EMS pilots to do vertical ascents, and seldom teach how to survive a power failure in that regime. It can be done, in a 206 at least. The images I've seen don't seem to show evidence of that technique having been applied.

The 206 is as safe as any aircraft in non-sched service- twin, single, fixed or rotary. It has one significant vulnerability- LTE. Some eyewitnesses relate descriptions that could be LTE.

I'm going to play my harp a bit more on the pilot failure theme- This helo was newly refurbished and placed into service. The pilot had something like a month in the employ of AEL. Compared to the average experience level at my program, this pilot was a relatively low-time.

Anecdotally, it seems there are points unusually common in proportion, in the last year or so of US EMS accidents:
"Unaided" night flight;
New type, or recently refurbed aircraft;
Relatively inexperienced pilots;
Challenging situations, well out of the norm for run of the mill helicopter pilot training.

Yes, I know- old timers have crashed with years of experience in that very aircraft and LZ- But we are the majority of the fleet, in my observation. Pilot failure kills across all demographics.
Devil 49 is offline