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Old 6th Oct 2015, 17:08
  #30 (permalink)  
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One problem with this case is that the urgency and severity of the injury (ie the amount of jeopardy the casualty was in) has only been reported by the injured party himself to support the actions of the pilot.

Quite understandable that the casualty should be enormously grateful for having a doctor delivered to him when he is in pain and shock but he didn't die in the 6 hours it took to stretcher him off and broken femurs (unless accompanied by femoral bleeding) aren't usually fatal.

So the pilot took a big risk with his life, the co-pilots life, the medical teams lives and that of the casualty, in a single engine piston aircraft in very challenging terrain and weather conditions.

Was it a skillful piece of flying? Yes. Did it need to be carried out? Perhaps not - if the casualty was carried out, a team could walk in so it may just have saved some time and discomfort for the casualty.

Had anything else gone wrong it could have been a multiple-fatality accident with a much bigger witch hunt then there now is.

Experienced SAR operators know when to say NO - I don't blame the pilot for trying to help but I don't think he did much of a risk/reward assessment before acting.
crab@SAAvn.co.uk is offline