diethelm
18th Jul 2005, 20:32
Inexperience proves fatal in the South Dakota darkness By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
Mon Jul 18, 7:19 AM ET
Air ambulance pilot Masaaki Suzuki almost flew into a radio tower during his first week on the job, federal records show.
Flying at night over the South Dakota prairie, he became disoriented and sometimes sent the helicopter into a dive, pilots who accompanied him said. And the 39-year-old Japanese immigrant had trouble communicating on the radio because he couldn't speak English well.
But that didn't stop Omniflight, one of the nation's largest air ambulance companies, from putting Suzuki at the controls of night rescue flights.
Despite his problems, Suzuki met federal flight qualifications. And the company's facility in Aberdeen, S.D., had a shortage of pilots. Over the objections of Omniflight's local safety chief, a top company official rescinded an order that barred Suzuki from flying at night, federal records show.
On Sept. 9, 2002, Suzuki's fourth mission on the night shift, he dove his helicopter into a pitch-dark bean field near Doland, S.D. The pilot and two medical workers were killed instantly.
So was Peter Carter, a 70-year-old doctor whom the air ambulance was taking to a Sioux Falls hospital for heart problems.
Neither the company nor the government had kept Suzuki on the ground.
The crash illustrates safety shortcomings that have caused the number of air ambulance crashes to surge. A USA TODAY analysis of crashes since 1978 shows that pilot error was responsible for about three-quarters of all accidents.
"These pilots are working under some pathetically low requirements," says Kari Bartling, a lawyer who won an undisclosed settlement from Omniflight on behalf of the family of the nurse on board, Gail Ann Hauck. Bartling says the only way companies will become safer is if federal regulators mandate tougher standards.
Paramedic Andrew Willey also died in the crash.
Even before Suzuki began work at Omniflight's Aberdeen operation in February 2002, safety manager Scott Rivers worried about the new hire. Suzuki's résumé showed limited experience flying at night over poorly lit countryside.
But what Rivers saw on his first flight with Suzuki shocked him. Rivers, a former Army helicopter pilot who still flies in the National Guard, took Suzuki up for a nighttime orientation ride over the rolling farmland outside of town. He instructed Suzuki to turn right.
"We went into a dive," Rivers says. The helicopter shook violently as it headed for the ground at more than 1,000 feet per minute. Suzuki did not seem to realize what was happening, Rivers says. Only after Rivers told Suzuki to level off did he pull out of the dive.
The Bell 206 helicopter they were flying tends to drop when it turns right, but the bigger problem was the darkened prairie. Pilots can fly for miles at night in South Dakota without seeing a light; it can be easy to lose track of which way is up or down.
Suzuki had other problems. On his first mission, he got lost, violated company rules by flying into clouds and almost hit a tower, NTSB records show.
That incident and Rivers' concerns prompted Omniflight to give Suzuki a new round of flight tests.
Rivers says he rode along on one of the test flights and saw Suzuki commit some of the same errors. But another company pilot who conducted the tests concluded that Suzuki was qualified to fly.
Even so, local base manager Albert Trumble restricted Suzuki to daytime flights only. Omniflight CEO Gaylan Crowell says such restrictions are routine for new pilots. Officials at the company's headquarters weren't aware of the problems Suzuki had on his first flight, he says.
By June 2002, Omniflight wanted to put Suzuki on the night shift at its shorthanded helicopter base.
Trumble wrote in an e-mail to the company's Texas headquarters that he supported the move but worried about Suzuki's skills. "He needs more experience, but how much risk are we taking letting him get it on the job?" Trumble wrote in the June 9 e-mail.
Safety director Rivers was more blunt. In a letter dated June 19, he detailed Suzuki's many shortcomings and ranked Suzuki's skills at various tasks between "poor" and "pathetic."
Chief Pilot Colin Henry said he would resolve the issue by personally flying with Suzuki. On June 28, after a brief ride with Suzuki, Henry reinstated him to fly nights. In an interview, Henry defended the flight as an "appropriate" test of Suzuki's skills.
But Rivers says that the test flight, conducted in a well-lit area near the Aberdeen airport, would not have demonstrated the problems Suzuki had over darkened countryside.
Omniflight CEO Crowell says the test was one of several that showed Suzuki was capable of flying at night. No one felt pressure to put Suzuki back on the night shift, he says.
"There's nothing for Omniflight to gain by putting an unsafe pilot in the cockpit," Crowell says. "We've been in business 40-plus years, and we didn't get that way by being careless or putting unsafe people in the cockpit."
Angered that he had been overruled, Rivers says, he told his friends in the National Guard that Suzuki was bound to crash.
On only his fourth flight after being placed on the night shift, Suzuki slammed the helicopter into the ground. The NTSB blamed Suzuki and "the company's inadequate remedial actions after identifying the pilot's night flying deficiency."
"It never should have happened," says Rivers, who now flies for another air ambulance firm.
"It gets me mad every time I think of it."
Mon Jul 18, 7:19 AM ET
Air ambulance pilot Masaaki Suzuki almost flew into a radio tower during his first week on the job, federal records show.
Flying at night over the South Dakota prairie, he became disoriented and sometimes sent the helicopter into a dive, pilots who accompanied him said. And the 39-year-old Japanese immigrant had trouble communicating on the radio because he couldn't speak English well.
But that didn't stop Omniflight, one of the nation's largest air ambulance companies, from putting Suzuki at the controls of night rescue flights.
Despite his problems, Suzuki met federal flight qualifications. And the company's facility in Aberdeen, S.D., had a shortage of pilots. Over the objections of Omniflight's local safety chief, a top company official rescinded an order that barred Suzuki from flying at night, federal records show.
On Sept. 9, 2002, Suzuki's fourth mission on the night shift, he dove his helicopter into a pitch-dark bean field near Doland, S.D. The pilot and two medical workers were killed instantly.
So was Peter Carter, a 70-year-old doctor whom the air ambulance was taking to a Sioux Falls hospital for heart problems.
Neither the company nor the government had kept Suzuki on the ground.
The crash illustrates safety shortcomings that have caused the number of air ambulance crashes to surge. A USA TODAY analysis of crashes since 1978 shows that pilot error was responsible for about three-quarters of all accidents.
"These pilots are working under some pathetically low requirements," says Kari Bartling, a lawyer who won an undisclosed settlement from Omniflight on behalf of the family of the nurse on board, Gail Ann Hauck. Bartling says the only way companies will become safer is if federal regulators mandate tougher standards.
Paramedic Andrew Willey also died in the crash.
Even before Suzuki began work at Omniflight's Aberdeen operation in February 2002, safety manager Scott Rivers worried about the new hire. Suzuki's résumé showed limited experience flying at night over poorly lit countryside.
But what Rivers saw on his first flight with Suzuki shocked him. Rivers, a former Army helicopter pilot who still flies in the National Guard, took Suzuki up for a nighttime orientation ride over the rolling farmland outside of town. He instructed Suzuki to turn right.
"We went into a dive," Rivers says. The helicopter shook violently as it headed for the ground at more than 1,000 feet per minute. Suzuki did not seem to realize what was happening, Rivers says. Only after Rivers told Suzuki to level off did he pull out of the dive.
The Bell 206 helicopter they were flying tends to drop when it turns right, but the bigger problem was the darkened prairie. Pilots can fly for miles at night in South Dakota without seeing a light; it can be easy to lose track of which way is up or down.
Suzuki had other problems. On his first mission, he got lost, violated company rules by flying into clouds and almost hit a tower, NTSB records show.
That incident and Rivers' concerns prompted Omniflight to give Suzuki a new round of flight tests.
Rivers says he rode along on one of the test flights and saw Suzuki commit some of the same errors. But another company pilot who conducted the tests concluded that Suzuki was qualified to fly.
Even so, local base manager Albert Trumble restricted Suzuki to daytime flights only. Omniflight CEO Gaylan Crowell says such restrictions are routine for new pilots. Officials at the company's headquarters weren't aware of the problems Suzuki had on his first flight, he says.
By June 2002, Omniflight wanted to put Suzuki on the night shift at its shorthanded helicopter base.
Trumble wrote in an e-mail to the company's Texas headquarters that he supported the move but worried about Suzuki's skills. "He needs more experience, but how much risk are we taking letting him get it on the job?" Trumble wrote in the June 9 e-mail.
Safety director Rivers was more blunt. In a letter dated June 19, he detailed Suzuki's many shortcomings and ranked Suzuki's skills at various tasks between "poor" and "pathetic."
Chief Pilot Colin Henry said he would resolve the issue by personally flying with Suzuki. On June 28, after a brief ride with Suzuki, Henry reinstated him to fly nights. In an interview, Henry defended the flight as an "appropriate" test of Suzuki's skills.
But Rivers says that the test flight, conducted in a well-lit area near the Aberdeen airport, would not have demonstrated the problems Suzuki had over darkened countryside.
Omniflight CEO Crowell says the test was one of several that showed Suzuki was capable of flying at night. No one felt pressure to put Suzuki back on the night shift, he says.
"There's nothing for Omniflight to gain by putting an unsafe pilot in the cockpit," Crowell says. "We've been in business 40-plus years, and we didn't get that way by being careless or putting unsafe people in the cockpit."
Angered that he had been overruled, Rivers says, he told his friends in the National Guard that Suzuki was bound to crash.
On only his fourth flight after being placed on the night shift, Suzuki slammed the helicopter into the ground. The NTSB blamed Suzuki and "the company's inadequate remedial actions after identifying the pilot's night flying deficiency."
"It never should have happened," says Rivers, who now flies for another air ambulance firm.
"It gets me mad every time I think of it."