Torres. By the nature of your post are you an employee of the RFDS?
The fact that some aircraft are designed around a single pilot operation has little to do with the stark reality of the nature of RFDS flying. Manufacturer's design single pilot aircraft such as those used by the RDFS in order to sell them to those who cannot afford two-pilot aircraft. It is then purely a matter of certification.
What must be taken into account by the operator is the operating environment. As an analogy, the Lancaster bomber with four engines was designed to be flown by a single pilot. But the wartime operating environment was obviously dangerous, and if the pilot was shot, then the aircraft was lost. So the RAF ensured that the aircraft always carried another pilot or someone trained to land the aircraft if the captain was dead.
But the aircraft was certified as single pilot.
As I said in an earlier post, the RFDS operate under the most demanding conditions day and night. I have the highest regard for the undoubted skills of their pilots. The fact remains that the operating environment of RFDS aircraft can be downright dangerous at times, exacerbated by medical emergencies where regardless of the weather and pilot fatigue factors, there will always be this desire by the pilot to do his best to save a patient - particularly a child.
If the addition of a second pilot on mercy flights is going to cause a gross weight problem, then it is the responsibility of the RFDS to address that problem. The accident files of ATSB and overseas safety authorities are not short of single pilot night circling approach accidents - usually fatal to crew and passengers. The Monarch accident revealed that the second pilot carried on that flight was not trained for the job - but only there to make it legal. Bargearse's assertation that his presence failed to prevent the accident is correct - but for the wrong reason. If the Monarch second pilot had been certified competent to act in all respects as the second crew member, then the result may have been different. It is defending the indefensible by stating that a second pilot in an RFDS aircraft would not add to the safety of the flight. Having said that, a second pilot would have to be properly trained for the task.
When a pilot whose vast experience of night RFDS operations is killed during a night non-precision approach in a single pilot operation, then clearly there is a need to take a long hard look at the single pilot policy espoused by the RFDS. This was no typical low hour CPL that met his death, but one of the most experienced pilots in Australia at night mercy flight operations.
This was an accident waiting to happen. Pity it took such a fine gentleman as Brian Smith.
[ 12 December 2001: Message edited by: Hudson ]