If anything, it's stimulated an interesting bent on aspects of helo flying. Looking over previous entries it would appear I may have been a little 'short' with Hoverman and for that I do apologise without reservation (even if you did slag me off on the twin Vs single thread about this EMS issue!).
I have a vested interest in this subject ever since we as a HEMS/Police unit were advised that some of our 'rescues' were bordering on the illegal for want of a better word. Up until then we had successfully completed innumerable 'rescues' some of which achieved national TV coverage in programmes like Police/camera/action and '999'.
Other units had done similar 'good' work:
The floods where a police helo rescued people from the club house roof / the police helo that dragged a suicidal woman back ashore using the skids to tow her / paramedic leaning off the skids whilst helo hovering inches above the sea, to grab a drowning child.
As a result of all these and others, the Home Office waded in and reminded our bosses that we were operating outside our remit. A massive debate took place resulting in inumerable discussions between the CAA / HO and police/HEMS units.
The end result: the statement 'protecting' the pilot from liability in these cases (written down in our rule book) was retracted in an amendment of the rules to avoid future misinterpretation
This is the interesting bit: Off the record, they all agree that should these situations occur again, they all know what they would do as individuals but they could NEVER legislate for it
When you sit down and pour over it, you can understand why: If the rules and/or performance limits of the helo are compromised, there will ALWAYS be someone out there threatening to sue. Authorities therefore cannot legislate FOR these rescues even though they expect the pilot to go out and do his moral duty
The same goes for HEMS work. It is strictly regulated and a pilot can do his/her job 90% of the time. The performance requirements and rules are very flexible, but they do eventually draw the line...step over it and you'll suddenly find you've got no friends
The Potomac river is a beautiful example:
The helo driver was a true hero, irrespective of his background (mil/civvy). It is a call, hopefully, all of us would answer, honourably. BUT and it's a whopping BUT....
if the helo went into the river because, for instance he clipped some debris, or the engine iced up, or the skids got wedged under some wreckage, there is a chance additional casualties would have ensued. What would the authorities have done then? What would the estates of the airline victims have done? What would bystanders have done if they had been injured by the subsequent crash? A legal nightmare is it not. At the time, emotion masks everything and heroism rules the day. If things did go badly wrong though, I suspect the legal/insurance machine would fire up and months later, in the cold light of the day who's head would role????
You're damned if you do ...and damned if you don't
You know what they say: if you couldn't take a joke...you shouldn't have joined
Secretly, we all know what we would do...don't we?
My round.