More news about the Indiana PHI EMS Crash
 

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/cnh...adpicturestory

Weather at approximately 0200 CST was supposed to be 400 overcast with 21/2 statute miles visibility. Aircraft was airborne for approximately 6 minutes before finally finding a place to alight. Pilot was quoted as telling the dispatcher...."We'll try it."

The article has a very interesting description of the final portion of the flight....it is a "must read" article.

Coming on the heels of the NTSB report on US EMS crashes.....this is not going to help matters any at all.

‘400 overcast and 2.5 miles’ at night in a JetRanger…you are a braver man than me Gungha Din!

“We’ll try it”. On just such an occasion as this I like the phrase “If there is any doubt…there is no doubt”.

Let us not look too closely at the pilot’s actions here…the operator (PHI?) IMHO should be the one that is mauled first!

You have to love old Ron, the guy next door. "heard a big boom" but dosn't go and have a look until the emergency services turn up. Then tells the reporters about "losing a good shade tree" oh dear...

The helicopter is a Longranger by the looks of it?

We were so lucky there were no power lines down. We are lucky we have a firefighter who’s a pilot. He knew exactly what to do. The engine was still running, the fuel pump was running. He was able to turn the power off quickly to ensure everyone’s safety. Fuel was leaking everywhere. There was no fire, but with the engine running, it could have ignited and caused major problems.”

Check the photo of the engine.......they must be very tough fuel lines...etc....:confused:

It is only a news report....thus some poetic license must be allowed. The observation about the engine is so telling. The photo of Rupert bending over and peering at what used to be a turbine engine....as compared to the written account does beg the imagination a bit.

As to the Shade tree....now that might have put a mechanic out of business you know?

A helicopter crashes into your neighbors house....and you don't go outside to see what the ruckus is about? Time to move neighborhoods I think.

The departure airport (MAdison, Indiana) has an AWOS-3 and there's another one 18NM to the North.
WX was 400/2.5 at time of departure, sometime after 01:00 Local time.
Uncontrolled airport with a CTAF. The WX minimums for HEMS transport programs accredited in accordance to standards in the USA are 800/2 at night for local flying areas to be defined and published in the Operators specific Operations Specifications.
If that is the case, and in view of the latest amount of flack directed to Air Ambulance transports in the USA, this guy is about to have a very prolonged and unpleasant period in his life.
Hopefully this shall be the final straw that brings everyone else back to reality with what has really been going on regarding HEMS flying in the USA.
We got a live one this time and I wish him a speedy recovery, he'll likely need excellent legal advice in court as I expect his employer to dump him like the proverbial hot potato.

Found at Alec Buck's EMS web site
 

Bold print my doing....

Anyone reckon "competition" might be a factor here?

Before we tar and feather this pilot....we should remember an accident derives from a chain of events....and not one simple action or decision. There's several people and organizations that need to stand up and discuss their role in this. Tott says it right...this crew is alive...and if they will follow the lead of the Lady in New Zealand...some very needed good might come of this event.

I hope the PHI, CAMTS, NEMSA, FAA, NTSB....to name a few are prepared to do so.

Tottigol my geographically challenged friend, the aircraft took off from Anderson, IN, not Madison, IN.

Honestly I'm not picking on you. Just taking the opportunity to make a relevant contribution to the discussion;)

On a serious note, all three crew members are in serious but stable condition and all are expected to pull through.

I would have to agree with Shortshaft the Operator should be mauled first.

From whats posted here; one has to wonder at the "company culture" that would allow a pilot to "we'll try it" at night in a Jetranger with 400 & 2 1/2 .

400 and 2 1/2 is marginal VFR weather in the daytime.

I dsiagree to a extent. I would not lift off 400 and 2 1/2 in a Jetranger at night unless someone had a gun to my head. Come to think of it... one better be a competent experienced and current IFR pilot to be prepared to go to those mins SPIFR at night.
The fact that it's allowed is crazy, the fact that the pilot did it is crazy too.

If you look at the photos of the engine you will see that it looks to be a C-30, check the exhaust, which means a Longranger. Hard to see how they thought it was still running after the crash...

Rev, my friend and constant counselor. I apparently got those two locations mixed up, but Anderson (KAID) is equipped woth an AWOS-3 to the same extent as Madison, and frankly 400/2, or 2.5 would not even make me go to the aircraft to remove the rotor tiedowns.
Apparently several "community based" VFR only programs have a "consistency" problem when it comes to checking WX before departure.
I was wondering how mandating IFR certification and currency and removing Part 91 flying in EMS (except for training and maintenance check flights) would affect a certain mid west based company.
Another great step would be implementing a mandatory installation of automated WX reporting at any new "rural" HEMS base set up by one of these so called community based programs, unless another one existed within five miles.
But then, again how many of those would be able to survive economically?:E

The positive part about this whole disgrace, is that the crew is alive and hopefully they'll be able to come to a complete recovery.

IHL

Why should the Operator be mauled first? Second, maybe, but is there not a chance the Operator did not know the pilot had launched in this weather? Ultimately it is surely the pilot's responsibility to know what weather is and make the decision as to whether it is right/he is happy to go. Admit not familiar with EMS ops but this does seem like a "blame the company first" attitude rather than the individual with the greatest obvious responsibility - the pilot. Companies are fundamentally only organisations made up of individuals with differing responsibilities.

Rotorspeed...

Take a wander thru FAR Part 135 and see how it deals with CP/DO responsibilities, flight dispatching, and flight following requirements.

The pilot is the final authority on the safe operation of the aircraft without a doubt. Management also carries the bucket when things go wrong....or should anyway.

"For evil to thrive, all it takes is for good men to do nothing."

It's largely academic who gets "mauled" first. This will be no different from hundreds of other accidents. Sadly there is always the same chain of events which will include the company ethos, EMS Operational ethos, the crews' professionalism, operational pressures, wx, aircraft serviceability, etc, etc. Some of these score positively, some score negatively, clearly this outcome had an overall negative score. Sometimes pilots have no idea whether they avoided an incident by a whisker or a country mile, but getting all the factors you can personally control on the positive score sheet is always sound advice. That's why only a fool or a journalist will say they know what caused it while the wreckage is still smoking. It's because they confuse knowing what the outcome was (helo hit building - we can all see that) with knowing what truly caused it.

Automated Weather Report
 

Here are METARs for KMIE (12nm NE of Anderson - [KAID]):

SPECI KMIE 020541Z (0041L) AUTO 32006KT 3SM BR OVC004 02/02 A2978 RMK AO2
METAR KMIE 020553Z (0053L) AUTO 31006KT 3SM BR OVC004 02/02 A2978 RMK AO2
METAR KMIE 020653Z (0153L) AUTO 28004KT 3SM BR OVC004 02/02 A2978 RMK AO2

There are no METARs archived for Anderson around the mishap time frame.

I would have been snuggled up to my pillow doing my very best to keep everyone else awake with weather numbers like that.

SASless

I certainly would not have the time to even locate FAR Part 135, let alone take a wander through it.

But you said it: "The pilot is the final authority on the safe operation of the aircraft without a doubt".

It is reasonable for a company to expect its individual employees, pilots included, to take primary responsibility for the decisions they are supposed to, and do, make.

The commercial world is becoming increasingly burdened by a Health and Safety authority attitude that presumes the organisation is always automatically and primarily to blame rather individual employees, even when they have clearly acted outside policy and common sense. This is contributing to the development of an attitude of blaming others (ie the company) rather than ourselves when mistakes are made.

Running a successful business is hard enough - as the aviation world proves - without added unreasonable burden. You can bet the operator in this instance will incur a huge workload as a result of the accident, regardless of where the main responsibility is ultimately deemed to rest. And that is before the costs of aircraft and ground damage, reputation, loss of business etc are taken into account.

Agreed we do not know the full circumstances. Maybe the pilot was unreasonably pressured by ops to go. But then maybe he wasn't.

Rotorspeed, you and others have suggested that pressure to fly from management may have been a factor. I don't know the pilot but I do know his boss, his bosses' boss, the base, the airport, the dispatchers, the aircraft and the company quite well. I don't know the circumstances of the accident either but in my own experience with this company I have never felt pressured to do anything. I have seen the occasional lowlevel manager take it upon himself to offer 'suggestions' or give 'advice' on what he would do, but it's very easy to just disregard their input and do what you think is safe instead. More often I've seen pilots put pressure upon themselves to fly, especially in the Gulf, in an effort to please a customer or get the job done.

PHI has tightened up on its dispatch weather minima in the last 2 or 3 years. The whole Company Operations Manual was re written and issued about 18 months ago with a whole section (almost another Manual) on EMS.

The re write took a year and the question of company versus legal disptach minima was debated long and hard. I do not believe, looking at the Metars, that the weather was anywhere near meeting company minima. The 02 02 temp and dewpoint and the time of night meant that nothing was going to change for the better for some considerable time.

PHI teaches and encourages a "crew" mentality for EMS operations and the whole crew is actively encouraged through dedicated CRM programs to become involved in the decision making process.

While management always has some responsibility, the decision and interpretation of the weather at the time has to be the responsibility of the crew, not just the pilot. In this case, it looks like managment could have had little influence on the outcome. First stop for the investigators should be the (alive fortunately) crew of this aircraft.

Hippo,

This is not a PHI problem, but rather an industry wide problem. Good folks are making decidedly bad decisions and unfortunately very few live to tell about it. Every pilot flying EMS has gone IIMC probably or encountered weather or climatic conditions they did not count on. Flight delays can catch you out and allow for weather to become a problem.

The NTSB recommended all sorts of equipment improvements that cost a lot of money. They are simple to acquire and install but expensive and add weight and cost.

The cheap part of the solution but the hardest one is to find a way to ensure good people make good decisions regarding flying or not. The flight not taken guarnatees there will be no accident. The trick is to take the right flights and not the ones that set you up for that accident.

If this was the first weather related accident in a while or an isolated indicident then this would not be such an issue. Unfortunately the EMS industry as a whole is doing a terrible job of assessing weather correctly and refusing to fly in hazardous weather.

I would suggest operators would be well put to conduct third party evaluation of their programs and seek to find methods that will provide the flexibility needed to operate but do so in a manner that effectively prevents bad judgement calls that are causing these accidents.

If a visit was conducted at any EMS base....where the pilots were immune from retribution....almost everyone would tell of feeling pressure to fly despite Management stating otherwise. In most cases, this perceived pressure is self inflicted but that does not free Management from responsibility in my book. The operator has a responsiblity to promote measures that combat that perception.

We are killing people with an amazing regularity due to these kinds of accidents and there is lots of arm waving and yelling but no one is doing anything aggressive to change the environment we are working in.

Maybe they need to create a "Dispatch Office" much like the Part 121 operators do for overseeing flights. They all have computers....centralize the dispatch room to confirm weather decisions being made by pilots. Hire an experienced pilot, retired pilot and give them a remit to accept or decline takeoff decisions after the pilot and crew have reached a decision. That would be one last check on the guys before they go out the door.