Wiltshire HEMS: night ops criteria?

[Trevor KC]

Hi guys and gals

Was driving in my local area the other night and came upon a road accident. Emergency services in attendance and then out of the sky arrived the Wiltshire air ambulance and landed in a field at the side of the road. What particulary interested me was that this was at night and additionally I myself was a HEMS casualty some years ago. I understand that there only 2 Air ambulances in the UK that can operate at night (Wiltshire being one of them). My question is what criteria (equipment etc) are required to enable HEMS aircraft to operate at night, particularly in a rural area like mine in Wiltshire. My interest stems from as I mention earlier, I was fortunate to be attended by the Wiltshire air ambulance some years ago and secondly I am a helicopter engineer and weekend pilot. Many thanks

Trev

[timex]

Trev, the Wiltshire A/C is dual roled (AA and Police) and as such is fitted with FLIR and Nitesun which means it can Recce sites and is therefore allowed to do Night Ad-hoc landings. (IIRC)

[OvertHawk]

Trevor.

The two ambulance helicopters operated by the Scottish Ambulance Service from Glasgow and Inverness both operate at night and in IFR (although they only do surveyed sites / hospitals / airports at night).

I understand that at least one of the English charity operated ambulances (Lincolnshire perhaps) has plans to introduce 24 hour "primary" ops with two crew and NVG as soon as they get approval from the CAA.

Someone please correct me if i'm wrong about the second part

OH

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Trevor, when I had the priv to do shifts on the Wilts (and, briefly, Sussex) aircraft we were obliged to observe several other caveats - for example, from memory, the minimum LS dimensions were double those for day ops at 4 X the max dimensions of the heli. About 3 years ago a change of 'ownership' of the PAOM Pt 2 meant that night HEMS could only be carried out within Wiltshire's boundaries.

Good though the kit was, I find it difficult to believe that even now NVG ops are considered 'unusual' in UK civvy life, rather than the norm as they have been in the military for so long. The Wiltshire line-check into an area near a rural car-park in the middle of nowhere was definitely one of the more memorable events (for all the right reasons).

[Skidkid]

You have to appreciate that there is a big difference, in the UK, between landing a HEMS helicopter, at night, at a pre-surveyed landing site or carrying out an 'ad hoc' landing at an un-surveyed site.

OvertHawk quite rightly points out that the Scottish Air Ambulances do operate at night, but are only permitted to land at pre-surveyed sites such as hospitals or airfields. I understand that they do not have equipment such as FLIR, NVG or nightsun to allow them to carry out night 'ad-hoc' landings.

Landing at a night 'ad-hoc' site is very different because it could be anywhere!! It could be surrounded by wires, buildings, rocks, animals, high ground, sloping ground, you name it, etc etc. In order to do this safely, you need to be able to recce the site before you land, which you can only do with equipment such as FLIR, NVG or nightsun.

At the moment, the UK CAA does not permit the use of NVG so one has to have FLIR or nightsun. The only HEMS authorised helicopters to have these at the moment are ones that are in police use.

The Wiltshire, Sussex and Cambridgeshire police helicopters are the only ones that routinely carry paramedics or doctors and are permitted to do routine night HEMS work although, I think, that other police units can do so in an emergency.

Thud_and_Blunder quite rightly points out that there are several other rules that have to be observed such as LS dimensions and operating 'within force area'. I think I am right in saying that they can also only be carried out in 'genuine threat to life' situations and not just for a broken ankle.

[Trevor KC]

Many thanks for the info guys, I thought that they must be using NVG but as you point out this is still in abeyance with the CAA. However, very impressive and also heart warming to know that we have this capability in our area.

Trev

[Brilliant Stuff]

Also may I add that Police helicopters can pick casualties up at night who are at deaths door and they are not restricted to county boundaries.

[Skidkid]

Trev,

If you want some bedtime reading, the full rules are defined in CAP612, the "Police Air Operations Manual".

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP612.PDF

In a quick summary, it says:

"A police unit may not conduct a HEMS flight unless holding an approval, issued by the CAA."

These 'approvals' will be held by the Wiltshire, Sussex and Cambridgeshire Air Support Units. There may be others, I'm not sure.

However, it also says:

"There may be other times when a police aircraft finds itself in a position to give limited assistance such as CASEVAC. This type of operation should only be undertaken as a measure of last resort when no other means of transportation is available (or suitable)."

A CASEVAC is defined as:

"A flight, the purpose of which is to give immediate assistance to a sick or injured person in life-threatening circumstances."

There's a lot more to it which you read about in Section Five if you're interested.