Funny thing....helicopter EMS operators can have two fatal crashes within two weeks and the FAA cannot seem to find the interest to do the same. Am I missing something?
FAA involved in air ambulance inspections
By ILIMA LOOMIS, Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 10:44 AM
WAILUKU – The Federal Aviation Administration is conducting an inspection of Hawaii Air Ambulance to determine if the company has “systemic” problems.
FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said the inspection goes beyond the federal agency’s normal participation in a post-crash investigation, and it was prompted because the air ambulance company’s two fatal crashes in two years raised a “red flag.” But he said the FAA had not revoked Hawaii Air Ambulance’s airworthiness certificate, and the company was being “very cooperative.”
“They voluntarily shut down all their operations until such time as they can satisfy all the concerns we’ve outlined to them,” he said Monday.
Fergus said his agency was doing an independent inspection of the company, while allowing Hawaii Air Ambulance to proceed with its own internal investigation.
“They are doing an investigation on issues and concerns we have already raised with them in our inspection to date,” he said.
If the FAA inspectors identify any concerns, they will allow the company to address them first, he said. Only if the company doesn’t respond satisfactorily will the FAA proceed to the “investigation” stage, he said.
A Hawaii Air Ambulance spokesman said previously that he was “not aware” of any FAA involvement in the company’s voluntary inspections by an outside firm.
Keith DeMello, of the
PR firm McNeil-Wilson, had said Saturday that the company would share information with the FAA if asked.
Monday he said he previously had not known the FAA was involved but that the company was cooperating to the fullest extent possible.
“All I know is, HAA welcomes it,” he said.
With HAA planes grounded, health care workers remained concerned about what would happen to medical evacuation services in the near term.
An official with the Hawaii Disaster Medical Assistance Team said his squad of nurses, doctors and medics had been staffing flights aboard the Coast Guard’s C130 plane since March 10, two days after the air ambulance crash in Kahului.
But as emergency responders, DMAT officially had a 14-day window to operate, a time limit that expired Friday. Team Leader Toby Clairmont said the group was coordinating with the nonemergency Medical Reserve Corps to take over flight duties beginning today.
“We hope by the end of the week it will be fully transitioned, with us in a standby role,” he said.
Maui Memorial Medical Center CEO Wesley Lo said even with the Coast Guard/DMAT flights and the option of calling Maui’s emergency-response medical helicopter AirMed One, the hospital was seeing some “longer-than-acceptable wait times” for patients needing to get to Honolulu.
Lo said hospital staff members want to see a consistent air ambulance service up and running soon.
“It’s touch and go,” he said. “Everybody’s worried about it.”
The DMAT team and Coast Guard’s C130 plane are called only for patients at immediate risk of losing “life, limb or eyesight,” Clairmont said. Less-urgent patients must wait to catch a ride on the plane when it comes for a more critical case, he said.
DMAT has about 60 health care workers on call for flights, including some Neighbor Islanders who are staying on Oahu in order to serve. The crews are volunteers, and patients are not charged for the services.
The Medical Reserve Corps, also called Na Lima Kako’o, currently has about 165 volunteer members in its Oahu unit.
The issue of DMAT’s mobilization and time limits raised questions over when the volunteer group actually took over Coast Guard flights from Hawaii Air Ambulance crews, which provided medical staffing in the days immediately after the March 8 crash.
Air ambulance spokesman DeMello initially said Monday that HAA staff members “have been flying with Coast Guard aeromedical missions.” But he later confirmed that HAA crews were no longer flying.
DeMello said HAA crews stopped flying after March 17, but he previously had not known of the change.
Department of Health spokeswoman Janice Okubo said the change in medical crews was made to avoid the appearance that the state was “endorsing” a private company, and because health officials thought it was inappropriate for government resources to be used by a commercial operation.
“The decision to have the DMAT fly was not any reflection on the ability of HAA,” she said.
She did not know the exact date of the transition.
Three Oahu crew members died March 8 when a Hawaii Air Ambulance Cessna 414 crashed as it approached Kahului Airport for landing, exploding in a BMW dealership parking lot. Previously, a pilot and two medics died in a January 2004 crash on the Big Island.
Maui medics and nurses who used to work for Hawaii Air Ambulance spoke out last week about safety and management concerns they said led them to quit the company even before either of the fatal crashes.
While HAA remains grounded voluntarily, Clairmont said he was concerned that people outside the medical community might not appreciate the seriousness of a gap in medical transport services.
“We’re providing the service, so the public doesn’t perceive a problem,” he said. “There is a problem. We’re acting in disaster mode right now. Something sustainable that’s commercial needs to come forward out of all this.”
Ilima Loomis can be reached at
[email protected].
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Copyright © 2005 The Maui News.