Our friends and colleagues on the eastern side of the salt water divide do not have the basis to pass judgement on our system especially if they try to compare theirs to ours. It is Apples and Oranges pure and simple.
If they wish to stick to discussions about individual factors and not a general broad brush comparison then we can in fact have a very good exploration into why EMS accidents occur, continue to occur, and continue to occur for the same reasons.
We have to consider the changes put in place within the past few years that have helped reduce the rate of accidents and the numbers of people killed.
Things are a bit different than the last time we had a really good bashing of ideas.....as I was the instigator of two threads about helicopter accidents and industry culpability in the EMS and Offshore sectors of the US Helicopter Industry.
Perhaps it is a time to reference those threads and update them by evaluating the systemic changes, changes in the ownership of the various operators, and the effect (good or bad) of regulation changes and enforcement activity by the FAA and within the Industry itself.
Our friends around the World have valuable experience and thus can inject some fresh thinking into our large oyster....their ideas might not be useful considering the politics and economy but they are definitely worth hearing and discussing.
Things are better here than they were....but are they as good as they should and can be.....that is definitely going to be good fun arguing!
Let's start with some up to date statistics....if we can find them and compare years 2010 and 2011 to previous years. Perhaps something will jump out at us that will indicate what the trends are as to accident rates, fatalities, injuries, and frequency....perhaps comparison of current causes compared to past data.