A 168 nautical mile recovery leg implies at least that long in patient transport. Even without the usual time in sending, packaging the patient,, transferring care at the receiving, and no refuel stops, the flight would have had to depart base at 19:53 local. That might be the night pilot. But add a leg tpo sending facility to pick up patient, fuel stop(s) and the usual hospital time and a better estimate would be 1800 local- or earlier, thus the day pilot. Two or three hours at the transferring facility are not unusual. I've waited 6 hours a couple of times in 15 years of HEMS.

With Air Methods standard shift calendar, the day pilots start Thursday or Monday, work 4 day or 3 days and finish their 7-day duty period rotating to nights. It's reasonable to consider that this was the accident pilot's first day of a duty period. If so, the possibility of reporting fatigued starts to add up- AMC doesn't offer sleep facilities for pilots, the PIC may have a had a long commute and minimal rest before the duty day started, I know many pilots who drive 2, 3, 4 hours to report for the duty period- some longer.

I know a pilot who had a unanticipated sudden hydraulic failure (pesky switch!) in a 350B2 at a low level high speed cruise at night. Had the event not occurred with a high level of cultural lighting giving him adequate surface orientation, I don't think he would have survived. But he is a very, very good pilot.... Even so the aircraft was down for a couple of days for thorough examination after exceeding a couple limitations.

I'm illuminating the possible contributing circumstances. This could well be a failure that never occurred before.

I still have to say, a hydraulic failure in an Astar is not a big deal. If you are getting gyrations slowing it down then you have a bad accumulator period. We train them in the hover, 500' hover, slow speed, fast speed, on final approach and never had a problem. I have had 2 for real, again no big deal, although in full disclosure mine were both day VFR.

I guess it is what you are comfortable with.

All the good EMS pilots cruise low level at high speed at night!

Leaving the receiving hospital and transitioning out of the busiest Class B in America, one might do so. Otherwise 1500' AGL or better,,company minimum en route altitude.
One might also be much lower than 1500' AGL at 3 minutes from your destination, approximately the situation of the accident aircraft.
I never got to fly as a pax with other pilots, I don't know how they flew. I personally liked to fly as high as I could reasonably get with a strong engine to maximize speed and minimize fuel burn. Not saying that was what was happening with the accident pilot, but 3 minutes out is getting pretty close, within a reasonable transition period from cruise to pre-landing configuration. I know I would be trying to visually acquire landmarks at that stage.

Devil49, you are way off base with almost all of your presumptions about AirMethods policy's and procedures you are passing off as facts known to you.
There are only two statements that hold credence put forth so far in this string with facts that are currently known.
SASless and Gordy are spot on with what is known about this accident or the B-2 in general.
This one needs to play out.
I'm afraid there will be a number of contributing factors involved in this tragedy that I suspect will be quite disturbing.

One might do so but I'm at a loss as to why.

In every USA EMS Crash there usually is!

the pump itself has a lot tolerance... it also has both clog indicator and prescribed SOAP by the OEM... Each servo has a bypass for redundancy... the pump belt has been upgraded then prescribed with a very conservative OTL interval... it has an accumulator to stable out a straight flight... redundancy can only do so much if someone decided to pass all the switch cheese hole consciously.

1 year anniversary and the NTSB website is absent any additional information. Has anyone heard anything?

Sad. Hope the required FDR will glean some information. Wonder if they had the camera which records the dash and possibly hear some of the communication that was transpiring in the cockpit.

Appareo Vision 1000 installed. Would make one think this shouldn't be that complicated. However preliminary report does state the unit and data card suffered damage.

FYI: no FDR/CVR required on this type aircraft. Unfortunately, the Appareo mentioned above is not built or required to survive an accident.

However per FAR 135.607, as of 4/23/2018, an "approved" Flight Data Monitoring System is required.

I'd be looking for the factual in another year/year and a half. We've got our best people on it.

Hard to work out whether that will make a difference - possibly knowing "what" went wrong possibly won't change the "why" it went wrong.

True. But the only required data to be collected was latitude, longitude, barometric altitude, and the date/time of the reading unless the operator chose to record more. All guidance stated this was not to be confused with an FDR or its crashworthiness.

The FAA NPRM simply proposed that the flight data monitoring system “would be required to capture data according to a broadly defined set of parameters including information pertaining to the aircraft’s state (such as heading, altitude, and attitude), condition (such as rotors, transmission, engine parameters, and flight controls), and system performance (such as full authority digital engine control, and electronic flight instrumentation system).”

In the final ruling, the FAA does not specify parameters of data or specifically identify a set of performance standards that must be met. It only requires that a flight data monitoring system capable of recording flight performance data be installed. Furthermore, the rule does not establish standards for crashworthiness or environmental testing. Compliance with 135.607 would be met by an FDR-like system installed and recording on the helicopter.

Final ruling: https://www.faa.gov/regulations_poli.../2120-AJ53.pdf

Unfortunately, after the date of the final ruling the FAA released it's guidance to enforce that ruling. Here are excerpts from the 2 most referenced. As I've been involved in the install of a number of these units, I can vouch that while most do include additional data, none in my experience reach anything close to "FDR-like" levels as it is at the discretion of the operator.After April 23, 2018, in accordance with § 135.607, all HAAs must be equipped with an FAA-approved Flight Data Monitoring System (FDMS) capable of recording flight performance data. The regulation intentionally does not prescribe retention or use of the FDMS recordings. These decisions are at the discretion of the air ambulance operator. Beyond the minimum flight performance data stated below, the type and frequency of data recorded is at the discretion of the operator. The current edition of AC 27-1 MG 6, Miscellaneous Guidance (MG) for Emergency Medical Service (EMS) Systems Installations, suggests flight data that should be considered for recording; however, this is a recommendation, not a requirement. The minimum requirements are:
· The FDMS must receive electrical power from the bus that provides the maximum reliability for operation without jeopardizing service to essential or emergency loads.
· The FDMS must be operated from the application of electrical power before takeoff until the removal of electrical power after termination of flight.
· FAA approval will be granted to an FDMS which has the capability of recording flight performance data including, at a minimum, altitude (mean sea level (MSL)), time/date of sampling with a minimum sampling rate of one record per second, and sufficient memory to record an entire flight. The FDMS must also be installed securely and must be powered as stated above in the regulation. The installation must be approved under the authority of a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC), an engineering review conducted by the Aircraft Evaluation Group (AEG), or a field approval.

AC No: 135-14B
c. FDMS Capable of Recording Flight Performance Data. To meet the requirements of § 135.607, the operator must install an FAA-approved FDMS in each HAA. In this context, “approved FDMS” means only that the installed FDMS be capable of recording “flight performance data” including at minimum: Latitude, Longitude, Barometric Altitude, and Date/time of recording, once per second and have sufficient memory to retain these data over 4 hours of flight time. The FDMS is approved by Supplemental Type Certificate (STC), design review, or field approval, depending upon the complexity of the installation, the interface between the FDMS and other systems installed aboard the aircraft, and that it poses no hazard to other onboard equipment, nor any hazard to occupants. Beyond the minimum parameters, additional parameters recorded by the FDMS are at the discretion of the operator. Retention and use of recorded data is also at the discretion of the Operator. The FDMS requirement becomes effective on April 23, 2018. The FDMS is not to be confused with a flight data recorder (FDR) certified under § 27.1459, though an FDR would be acceptable to meet the FDMS requirement.