CRM? Reminds me of the joke about why atheists don't like bj's - nobody to talk to...
My read of the report is that the aircraft was flown single pilot. Everyone else on board is a medic/crewman. One of them sits in the front sometimes and helps with the comm radios, maybe. For that he gets the title of Flight Crewman. He doesn't have a pilot license, doesn't have a type endorsement, can't fly, had a few hours briefing on how the doors open and where the radios are. Australians bs themselves that it is a "flight crew". No more a crew than the single-pilot EMS ops in the US. Difference is that you are flying a very complex aircraft. By yourself, at night, in IFR, with unrelated systems malfunctioning, in a strange new aircraft. Judging from the long gaps between training and then flying the 139, and the almost negligible number of the pilot's hours on type, you have to wonder in what regulatory environment would allow such a situation to happen. The whole things looks bush-league, and pretty much an indictment of the sorry state of affairs in the EMS world in Australia.
Good CRM would start with a second pilot in the cockpit - someone to talk to.
Last edited by malabo; 17th Oct 2010 at 15:36.