Not available???
Andy RR
Your first sentence is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!
People pay huge taxes, and expect reasonable support from essentail service providers in return. Not just within the J curve.
This post indicates that adequate resources are not properly provided in this case. Pilots should not have to consider anything except the job they are doing. Whether this will result in changes to the roster tomorrow or the next day is irrelevent. The managers should have considered this and made appropriate arrangements for crewing and equipment. It appears that they have not, and the pilots have to carry an extra burden because of their failure to provide.
Administrators have put a value on a human life but in this case it's irrelevent. In any case it is far more than $10,000.(more like a million)
There are two important pieces of information missing. What is the actual cloudbase in the destination area. We only seem to have an area forecast that says it MAY be low overcast. No-one knows if it actually is. It may be clear. Secondly, what would be the effect on the patient if you could not get back to base, and had to divert to B? What medical facilities are there? It seems the rostering and cost is considered more important.
If the patient is 400 nm away from base, it would be worth looking for another airmedical organisation 400nm beyond there where the weather at the departure point may be better.
If no better way can be found I believe you have a responsibility to go. You do not have the right to risk anyones's life. You may get your bum kicked by the beancounters, but that goes with the job. You have to live with what you do. Sometimes whatever you do is wrong.
And they say airmedical flying is the same as any other flying. It is not.
Last edited by bushy; 20th Jul 2006 at 07:32.