Aloutte 3 - Re: No hard feelings...
No hard feelings indeed. I got out of HEMS work about five years ago, and it's probably time for me to leave this thread. I agree with the concepts you describe like not informing the pilot of the type mission until a decision has been made as to whether to accept the flight or not. That's good common sense, as the pilot may have a soft soft spot for say, a child burn victim. But I don't think that it's fair to compare the non-EMS part 135 safety record to the Air EMS part 135 safety record. It's just not a fair comparison. Bad weather causes bad vehicle accidents. Health of a patient doesn't depend upon weather, whereas most air taxi work does indeed depend upon good weather. It's a fact of life, that if you are going to fly HEMS, you will be flying in marginal weather conditions. That is an increased risk factor. Consequently, there will be more HEMS accidents. Alt3, if you don't see this, then read no further. No hard feelings. Before we move on and try to fix it, we have to take our emotions out of the equation. If I appear to be in denial about something, please point it out so that I can recognize it. If I disagree with you about it we can discuss it further. And I ask that you search your own attitudes for signs of denial. There are "White Knights" and "Cowboys" and will be as long as there are helicopters. I'm sure that you don't care for the type in EMS and neither do I. But because we don't care for that type of pilot doesn't mean it's ok to blame all the accidents on them. It could very well be that the "white knight" would be quicker to turn down a marginal mission out of fear of not being able to complete it and looking bad. Come on alt, if I am flying logs, then I want to be the best logging pilot I can be. If I'm fighting fires then I want to be a good fire fighter. I don't want to be a half assed HEMS pilot. Which is not to say that I'm not concerned about safely completing the mission as being the most important thing on the agenda. If you (not you personally) are the type of pilot that will only fly in "clear blue", more power to you. The world needs more pilots like that. But if you are the type of pilot that won't get out of bed in a light drizzle, please don't take an HEMS job and spend all your time complaining that you can only fly patients when it's "clear blue". You're not doing yourself or your profession any favors. We can improve the HEMS safety record, but it's not going to happen by pointing fingers. When I hear counter-productive comments like "If you feel that way, you are part of the problem" I hear him really quoting from the Wizzard of Oz: "If...I...only had a brain...".
I think I'm outta here. If I offended anyone, I'm sorry.