What price a human life?
Recently I was tasked to complete a high priority medical job in my work as an aeromed. pilot. During the sequence of events that unfolded, I couldn't help but ask (myself) questions about the value we place on human life here in this country, and indeed in the 'Western' world, and the justification for this.
Put yourself in my shoes, and have a think about what you would have done, then put a loved-one into the patients place and see if you would change your answer or not.
I won't answer many questions on this one, but will post the eventual decision and outcome after some feedback.
Scenario:
1800 hours - Highest priority medical call advised to destination 'A', 400nm away.
A doctor is required to be carried in addition to the nurse, thereby reducing the fuel load able to be taken from departure airport.
'A' is an unsealed strip with no instrument approach or met reporting or forecasting facilities.
The area forecast indicates broken to overcast cloud over the greater part of the state, and local (to the departure airport) METARs indicate cloud and visibility below approach minima, let alone alternate minima.
The only suitable alternate for 'A' is 'B', some 500nm from 'A'. The departure airport isn't suitable as an alternate, as it itself requires an alternate.
Sigmets are current for severe icing. The SIGWX chart also indicates CAT along the track to and from 'A'.
The aircraft to be utilised is $X-million worth, and let's say runs 'crewed' at $2000/hour. In the LIKELY event that not only we do not become visual and land at 'A', but subsequently have to return to our departure point, and not getting visual, have to then continue to 'B', the bill for what looks very much an exercise in futility might be about $10,000. HOWEVER, in this eventuality, our complete crew would then also need to spend the following day in company funded accomodation (out of duty). The doctor, who is on call with the hospital local to the departure point, effectively becomes stranded away from his responsibilities, and with the pilot (me) then on days off, a second pilot (and perhaps entire crew) would need to be sent to take us all home, where the aircraft could be placed back onto standby, and nurse could go back on to duty that night.
Logistics then mean that the planned departure is delayed by 7 1/2 hours to0130, meaning should we 'launch', and end up as outlined above, it will be a max duty shift, and potentially either a duty overrun, or mercy flight due to extended duty.
During this delay, word is passed that there has been in excess of 50mm of rain on 'A's unsealed surface over 2 days, making it unusable, and an observer on the ground 50nm from 'A' has put the cloudbase in the area at "...about 200 metres mate..."
The doctor is keen to go, for the patients benefit of course, and arrangements are made for the patient to be transported by road to a sealed strip 'C', some 130nm (as the crow flys) away. 'C' has no instrument approach or met reporting/forecasting facilities either, and the MSA/LSALT is about 3 times as high as 'old mate's' guesstimate of the cloudbase midway between 'A' and 'C'.
Should the planned takeoff go ahead, approaches back into the departure airport, and most likely missed approaches, and subsequent flight to the alternate will be after about 14 hours 'awake', and this will be the third night in a row of 'late night ops', i.e., duty after 2330.
Do you go? Give it a shot for the good of humanity? Or call it quits and stay in bed..