It is not Red Tape to develop a position wherein an otherwise innocent / uneducated passenger can reasonably expect to survive a flight. Said passenger has grown up with motorcars and has some level of understanding of the risks associated therewith. Airline travel in Australia is statistically the safest way to travel and that is also generally accepted amongst the general population, but Joe Public does not necessarily have the same level of understanding relating to light aeroplanes.
The recent study released by ATSB shows GA Charter is 4.3 times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident than RPT operations. GA private ops are higher risk again. How many AF passengers would know this? The safest GA operation is EMS, despite their operations in all weathers and at all hours into often rudimentary landing sites. In light of this, and the Sydney Mojave crash, perhaps NSW Health should reconsider their 'lowest bidder' air ambulance operation. RFDS might not be the cheapest air ambulance service, but they are the safest.
In Qld, non-urgent patients (and if necessary escorts) are eligible to be carried by airline at no cost for specialist treatment not available locally, to a suitable major regional centre or the State Capital, and once there they have any required accommodation subsidised. Non-urgent patients whose condition requires in-flight management are transported by RFDS. Is this not the case in the rest of the country?
I was an AF pilot. At that time, there was no form of pilot checking, other than holding a copy of licence & medical on file. It was up to the pilot to declare whether they ere legally and operationally up to the task, when they either bid for a mission or were called by the coordinators.
Is AF actually a private operation? One of the criteria of the definition (hire or reward) is that the pilot receives no benefit, but AF does provide fuel through Air BP which surely constitutes 'reward', doesn't it?
A 'private' operation, where there is a well-funded administrative base, which advertises its service heavily in mainstream media, where pilots and aircraft are 'tasked' on 'missions' with some form of time constraint (appointments etc) doesn't sound much like a 'private' operation.
The AF website declares it pilots to be "heroes', and lists a 'mission log'. This underlying philosophy is one of the key points identified in the US study into EMS crashes.
This sad event will raise many questions, questions that probably should have been raised before the show got off the ground.