"Medical evacuation helicopter crashed"
 

AURORA, Ill. -- Four people have been killed after a medical evacuation helicopter crashed in the Chicago suburb of Aurora, Ill.

According to Aurora police, the helicopter was headed for Children's Memorial Hospital from Valley West Hospital in Sandwich.

Sgt. Robb Wallers said the helicopter belonged to Air Angels, an emergency medical transport service.

He said the victims included three crew members and a patient. He refused to provide further information on the victims, saying the next of kin had yet to be notified of the crash.

According to police, the helicopter crashed in a field near a residential area in east Aurora and was engulfed in flames. He said police and fire officials learned of the crash around midnight.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board were at the scene of the crash.

Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it.

:ugh:

oh my god, not again... :sad:

R.I.P.

Reported as a Bell 222.

"Not again" really does sum it up. It's been such a bad year that it's almost inevitable that lawmakers will intervene, just to be seen to 'stop the bleeding' (no irony or offense intended). With this and the economic meltdown, the industry is now facing the perfect storm.

One more :(

Seems something is really wrong with those Night VFR HEMS programs.

According to the latest news seems it may have cliped a guy wire from a radio station tower.

Single pilot night flight on HEMS operations is risky bussines.
The pilot workload on HEMS operations is very high and by night multiplies its factor.
A copilot may help to reduce the workload and maybe would help to spot hazards to the flight in time.

I have no magical solutions but something must be done or this is bound to be repeated. :uhoh:

I have said it before in a similar thread... stop night HEMS :ugh:

I really do not beleive it will make any significant difference if patient transfer or primary response is reverted to ground ambulances. You will never stop people from trying to kill themselves and at the end of the day as much as I support HEMS, it is becoming an embarrassment in the USA.:{:{

Hold on a minute folks, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet. I am not going to crawl into the deceased pilots cockpit but the weather was pretty crappy yesterday in Aurora. I'm not sure what time the accident occurred or what his flight weather was, but we were down for weather all day yesterday 50 miles south of Aurora due to low ceilings and vis. I am speculating here, and I mean no disrespect to our fallen brethren, but possibly clipping a tower guywire at night sounds like he may have been pushed below his normal night cross country altitude by unexpected weather. In fact he may have been trying to land due to weather, but we don't know at this point. You would not expect to be so low as to hit a guy wire on an interfacility transfer.

We have to step back (especially at night) and assess the risks to the entire crew making sure we are not focusing too closely on the patient and all the surrounding information that should not be part of the go-nogo decision process. While there has been a decided uptick in stateside EMS accidents, this older pilot feels some of these are related to newer less experienced pilots filling the void. Overall, night HEMS ops are being conducted in massive numbers across this country and are being executed in a safe and professional manner. Like it or not, single pilot night HEMS operations are an accepted NORM here in the states and new tools like ANVIS 9 Pinnacle NVG's are making them even safer.

Condolences to the familes and friends of the deceased.

WTF? You say they're getting safer? Doesn't sound like it if you only read pprune. There seems to be a lot of night hems ops go wrong! Reasons why? pushing the envelope?

Greetings Helimutt, I am not saying that things are safer right now, they seem decidedly unsafe. I was saying NVG's can make night operations safer. Of course, that's provided you hire qualified, experienced pilots, etc..etc.

Crap. I live only 30 minutes from the last crash (Maryland State Police near Andrews AFB).

Crap crap crap.

Sad days indeed.

"Like it or not, single pilot night HEMS operations are an accepted NORM here in the states ........"

Time to regulate them out of existence and to go for a new norm.

Twin engined, Category A, with two pilots AND NVG or FLIR.

Yes it will cost money.

Yes the two bit ops will go to the wall.

But better that than losing more friends and colleagues.

Yes, it WOULD COST money and NO, it WON'T HAPPEN unless they kill a Senator or a General (see the changes in the LUH competition following a UH-60 crash in TX) in the process.
Just because of the first paragraph above, who really runs the industry and who the FAA is in bed with.

I flew EMS for 10 years, on and off, and I have always thought every EMS pilot, in fact all commercial pilots, should have an IFR rating with some set number of hours of actual IMC experience. I think a lot of these crashes are IIMC related and speak to the inability or fear of these pilots to transition to instruments and commence IFR flight. IIMC and night Training with a well equipt aircraft could make the difference in some of these events. Its fiscally unrealistic to think the entire system will be revamped to the point these operations are dual pilot, full IFR aircraft, etc, etc.

Links to the latest we have here. :(



4 killed in helicopter crash in Chicago suburb - USATODAY.com

Crash victim's family thanks Air Angels :: Beacon News :: Local News

Careerhelodriver, are you serious, it is getting worse not better, this would have to be the worst year to date on record, ever. Don't you read the forums.

NVG's will not help anyone when you are in cloud or heavy rain at night, are you saying that if all the accidents this year in marginal weather would not have happened if NVG's were used, what a load of rubbish, four more good people dead, for what??? for what??? What a disaster your system is.:suspect::suspect::ugh::{

:( :( :(

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

some facts:
- time of accident: 11:58 (3:58Z)
- guy wire was clipped at approximately 700ft agl (tower is 734ft agl)
- NTSB guy stated that the lights where not on when he got to the scene, however could have been taken out by the accident.

Weather:
Cold front moved through at roughly that time; metar's indicate that a FEW015 was the lowest all night.

10nm west of crash site:
KARR 160352Z AUTO 33009KT 10SM OVC033 10/07 A3014 RMK AO2 SLP207 T01000072

8nm north-west:
KDPA 160352Z 32007KT 10SM BKN016 OVC023 12/09 A3012 RMK AO2 SLP201 T01170089

25 nm east:
KMDW 160404Z 33011KT 10SM FEW015 OVC028 12/09 A3011 RMK AO2
KMDW 160351Z 33009KT 10SM FEW015 OVC030 12/09 A3011 RMK AO2 SLP194 T01170094

In an "irony of ironies" situation tomorrow, weather permitting a helicopter is going to be used to replace the severed guy wire in hopes of keeping the tower from collapsing.

RJ

Careerdriver you bring up an interesting point about not focusing too much on the 'patient and all the information that should not be part of the go/no-go decision process', by which I presume you mean the patient condition. We just got a flight request for a patient pickup over 100 miles offshore. It's 2:45 AM and nearby weather stations are reporting a zero temperature/dewpoint spread so we've turned this one down but it occurred to me that maybe we should make the patient condition part of the go/no-go process.

Here's what I mean: This patient could have had anything from a broken ankle to a brain aneurysm for all I know. The decision to ask for a helicopter was made by some medical director somewhere who was either looking at the patient's medical chart or (cynical me) at his insurance card but surely wasn't looking at a weather chart or thinking about the risk involved in bringing a patient in from offshore in the dead of night in marginal weather. He made his medical decision and now it's up to me to make my pilot decision and neither one of us is fully informed.

Of course I can't make judgments on medical necessity any more than a doctor can judge the weather but a medically trained flight dispatcher could. Somebody in the chain of operational control could be in a position to weigh the two and see if a helicopter is really called for. Somebody should. Unfortunately though the health care industry in this country is not driven by medical necessity but by profit so the hospital only thinks about filling a bed and the EMS provider only thinks about billing for a transport; nobody does the cost-benefit analysis and up goes another helicopter, launching into the night to pick up a patient with a broken ankle. And therein lies -I think- the root of this problem.

In a strict sense most of these crashes are a result of CFIT at night in marginal weather (or some variation on that theme) but in a larger sense they are a statistical inevitability -the result of the over abundance of EMS helicopters in this country and their gross over utilization. No amount of additional equipment or training is going to remedy that. It's going to take changes in the way aircraft are allocated to different areas, the way they are utilized and how they are dispatched.

Revolutionary: I absolutely agree with you. I have seen this system at its worst. Launching helicopters to get people out of clinics so doctors can go home....flying people all over the mountains of Montana who were flown only to save an ambulance from having to drive for three hours.... These decisions are being made by medical professionals and medical crew members and in many cases, the reason is almost always so they can bill for the flight. I was almost always, and rightfully so, never made aware of the patients condition until arrival on scene.

To answer those who haven't read closely my previous post: I did not say the accident rate for EMS is getting better, it is getting worse. We all see that! I pointed out some practical ideas to make them safer. The Air Angels flight tragically clipping a 700' AGL guy wire probably could have been avoided.

It's already been posted, but:

"Damn it.

Damn it.

Damn it."

And already posted, "Hold on a minute folks, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet." Night VFR can be very, very safe. Perhaps not as safe as day VFR, but a heck of a lot safer than we're doing at present. NVGs make an immense contribution to this, but more is needed to make EMS night flights anywhere near as safe as day flights. Twins and singles, VFR and IFR, hospital and community based, all seem to share the increased risk of night flight. If you look at the trend, the common issue is that for some reason the pilot failed at some critical task: managing the autopilot; maintaining altitude; in severe clear VFR and other WX conditions, the pilot failed at something that, as a rule, is accomplished in daytime. Physiology, ladies and gentlemen.

My .02 worth.
 

There are many aspects to this. Poor decision making, poor weather flying, improper influences to "get the mission done", all while under operational control that is non-existant in most cases.

Why are dispatch calls getting to the base when the weather is below company minimums? When I challenged a communicator on why even call, I was told that "we just get the calls and forward them. It is the pilot's decision to accept or not." Pilots, with operational control listed in the A008 section of their OpsManual, overseeing the communcations centers with an active veto authority would be true operational control, not the brainless call forwarding service we currently suffer. If the company would not approve after the crash, why send the call out to the field offices? I was taught a long time ago that the best way to make a decision was to look at the possible conclusions of the accident investigation prior to the flight.

Also, young pilots are not sufficiently trained in the early years with no one on shift to mentor them in their development. 2 Pilot crews would bring this along, as well as provide that second set of eyes on pilot thoroughness. Too often, pilots shortcut preflight planning. Whether these omissions are because a flight request came in too early in the shift to complete the normal preparation, or whether the call awakens the crew at 0300 and the computer did not update the radar, HEMS weather or other information pertaining to the flight, the end result is an ill informed pilot. We tend to perform to standard when we are in the teaching/learning modes. Attention to detail would be increased, not to mention the increased crew coordination within the cockpit.

With two pilot cockpits comes twin engine capability, in most cases. I do not care what statistics are thrown on the wall when it comes to single vs. twin engine safety history. There are no existing databases, accurately sampled, that reflect the occurance of engine malfunctions on twin engine helicopters which resulted in a safe landing. If a twin becomes degraded by an engine failure, it now still flying when the single would be in an irretrievable autorotation. We know about those at night.

Night flights should have an Autopilot capability mandated from the feds. Several have commented on the workload on the single pilot, at night, in degrading conditions. Even in ideal VMC night conditions, workload his very high, stressors increasing throughout the flight, and the mere addition of an AP would assist greatly. With all the increased radio communication demands imposed after the AZ mid-air earlier this year, it is like playing switchboard opperator in a 1930's Keysone Cops movie. Give a man (or gal) a hand and provide a system that would at least hold altitude and heading. Even if two pilots are in the aircraft, it is a margin without which an airliner would not leave the gate.

Night flights also should have NVG mandated. I currently fly with the ANVIS 9 and it was the best safety advancement my company has ever made. Now, if we could only get the FAA to figure out that they do not need to regulate safety out of existance. Watching the FAA trying to figure out how they can regulate these things is like watching a monkey screw a football. It would be funny if not so sad.:sad:

Damn it, indeed! Common sense has taken a back seat to an entrenched FAA sorely out of touch with the demands imposed on insufficient aircraft; aircraft which were never designed for the task of EMS. Common sense abandoned for the saving of a dollar. Common sense ignored by operators who have the political connections to prevent positive change.

Damn it indeed.:mad:

Interesting posts - thanks for the ideas.

To me this thread seems to be leaning towards recommending the medical side look at some way of factoring in a mode-of-transport risk decision track betwixt ambulances and helicopters rather than making such decisions based solely on the perceived medical necessity of transport time savings. Hope that makes sense!

I certainly agree there is a general death of common sense at play in this HEMS industry when it comes to overall risk assessment and decision making by a lot of folks involved, at all levels;and I think folks on the line like us are the only ones capable of pointing out the real problems and possible solutions.

I think very well summed up by DTibbals53.
I quite my last program because they equipped the ground crews with NVG (who knows why) but wouldn't even talk/listen about NVG for the aircraft.

It is a shame that the FARs are written in blood, how much more is needed?

I was once taken aside by the CEO of the hospital based program where I flew, he in short words accused me "that instead of looking for reasons not to complete a flight I should look FOR REASONS TO COMPLETE A FLIGHT" and threatened to have me removed.

For as long as we allow that type of thinking in this industry and as long as we allow that degree of oversight by a customer, there will be death to pay.
We need to leave the medical equation OUT of our business, PERIOD.

Tottigol,

Well said. Nothing to add.

GP

Some good comments from some of the EMS pilots on this site.

I will give you my experience while flying EMS (Central Europe) at night.
We flew NVFR only, in a IFR equipped (less an autopilot), Bell 427. All pilots were given regular training, in a covered cockpit, on instruments and ILS captures.
There would always be 2 pilots (unless the 206LT was being used due to maintenance) with the Lead pilot for the shift making the go/no-go decision, with obvious input from the second pilot.
We had a 15 minute window to check weather along the route and to make sure that company minimums could be kept throughout the flight. The condition of the patient was not generally told to us, and even if so, was not relevant to the mission going ahead. The pilot’s decision was FINAL. He was backed 110% by the company management on this. Any medical personal pressuring a pilot would be removed from flight operations permanently.
We also only did inter-hospital transfers, or landings in to known areas at night. This is due to change with the introduction of NVG’s I believe. The weather minimums will remain the same however.
I don’t think NVFR is a big problem, but you have to pick your battles. If the weather is looking marginal just don’t go, it’s not worth it. You can’t save everyone.

This is a post from a while back where we said no, and another crew said yes, and died. It is well worth reading the entire thread. It all sounds depressingly similar.

http://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/204...terrain-2.html

We are wondering how much pressure is placed on HEMS pilots in the States. " Damn too many accidents to date for it not to be a consideration.
Do medical personnel give the pilot the patients condition prior to departure,? which would undoubtedly impact on a pilots decision making process.
Do the pilots get pressure from management? though I'm sure the pressure would be subtle enough not to place the management accountable for anything....
Due to pilot shortages world wide are operators finding it difficult to fill the positions with experienced pilots?? Even experienced pilots find it hard to say "NO" to a job.

I feel if the cockpit instrumentation required for NVFR was the same for IFR then I would n't have the same hesitation to fly NVFR. Personally I think it sucks and would never fly again with an operator that only has aircraft nvfr capable.

But when your young and need the hours you do and fly anything right????

Pressure, some subtle, some not so subtle.
Response times are recorded for every call, and yes sometimes questions are asked if it seems a slow response, no questions from the other pilots, questions come from the hospital.
Flight volume is also recorded and compared to previous months, this should in no way ever enter the mind of the pilot but there it is. If we can take the flight we will, if we can't we won't should be the answer.
Patient info is passed over the radio along with your heading and distance, why on earth does the pilot need to know anything about the patient, nasty harmfull diseases aside.
I got a light hearted comment tonight about my reading from the checklist and doing a quick 360 walkaround.
Luckily i think i can be very callous and i sleep soundly on the decisions i make, i hope this clear conscience continues.
This is just a business afterall? just don't let the med crew hear you say that!

A question that might be related to the comments about the tower being unlit.
How many of you have ever reported a tower's lights as being off? Who do you report it to? Was any action taken? Did you record the fact that the tower was reported as unlit??

Skool:
A few days ago, our Medical Base Manager made a comment that the job was getting more difficult because " the company is turning this into an aviation business". Therein lies a very important clue. I have said here before that, mentally, the crews are still in the back of the ambulance. Saving lives, going hell for leather, lights and sirens, to get there before " the hospital/volunteer squads/doctors(!) kill the patient". That is an inherent difference between the two groups.
As to the pressures,I believe, a lot of the pressure is self imposed. It could be something as mundane as --my paycheck will go away if my base gets shut down, or, as lofty as ---I am a part of the life saving equation. There is also an increase in the pressure (self imposed again) once the patient is on board.It is easier to abort on the first leg than on the second.These are the realities of the job and no amount of regualtion or deregualtion (i.e. take the medical equation out) or bells and whistles can fix them.
Just my 2 c worth---actually now I can only afford 1 c............!!
Alt3

Shawn, there are local numbers to be called for unlit towers, however it's not the FAA jurisdiction but it belongs to the FCC.

When you're young and need the hours you should NOT get a job as an EMS pilot!

GP

Mr Coyle,
I have an 1200' tower just right of the approach course and 8.11 nm from the the nearest airport with scheduled service that's been NOTAMed as intermittently illuminated for 6 years. That's right, SIX years.
Sometimes it has 1 light (the top), sometimes more, and lately new lights, generally working. But 6 years. Yes, I reported it to the FCC after talking to the FAA. I even talked to the company contracted to monitor it. Still, 6 years is a long time. You can tell how urgent the situation is for the tower's owners.

At my program, no pressure to accept dispatch, and no medical information shared prior to dispatch. I'm paid to say no, it's the hardest part of my job. The medics I fly with share the same attitude, in that saying no is tough. They'd rather not go than abort a run, with or without a patient. The time wasted in that process is completely NOT what we're about. When in doubt, chicken out- and go back to bed.

When in doubt, chicken out- and go back to bed.

:D

Well said Devil

Revolutionary rightly says:

"Unfortunately though the health care industry in this country is not driven by medical necessity but by profit so the hospital only thinks about filling a bed and the EMS provider only thinks about billing for a transport; nobody does the cost-benefit analysis and up goes another helicopter, launching into the night to pick up a patient with a broken ankle. And therein lies -I think- the root of this problem." :D :)

Excellent!


:*

There are just too many ways for HEMS launch criteria to be circumvented, or abused, by medical amateurs purporting to be professionals. If a medical ground crew want to get off shift at scheduled time, and can't due to an impending transport, guess what, that patient can suddenly, by a slight change in medical condition verbage, qualify for transport by helicopter (as if no one knows this already) - this straight from the horses mouth! Not amusing.

Perhaps our medical system here in the US should all be not-for-profit!? No doubt the medical side of the equation IS first in driving the bandwagon, and they need to wise up. All this abuse could stop with them. I wonder if they ever thought they could be, as Revolutionary says " ... the root of this problem." .

:bored:

Associated Press list of recent HEMS accidents; I don't believe the list is complete, because no 2007 accidents are listed.

According to FCC data, the tower hit last week in Aurora (WBIG-AM) was in a three-tower array. I have often seen such arrays with one or more towers completely dark. The "lights out" issue isn't just a concern among pilots; Radio World magazine has also highlighted the issue, notiing the unresponsivenes of both FCC and FAA. When one or more lights are out, and can't be quickly fixed (due to wx or whatever), a competent owner will try to alert FAA to issue a NOTAM. But they often run into bureaucracy; "That office is in Minot...". :*

However, the pilot was close to his home base in Bolingbrook, and familiar with the towers as a landmark.

Therein lies the crux of the matter
 

AAMS Works with FAA, Congress Toward Safety Enhancements

For as long as we allow the customer side of the business to run the show the priorities shall be reversed.:*

Here in the USA
 

A couple of things:

1. Where I fly there are may, many antennas. Some are nearly 2000 AGL. Most of the other antennas are over 900 AGL. Sometimes the lights are OOS on those structures, and sometimes there is not a NOTAM to reflect that. The FSS will not allow a pilot to file a NOTAM on an unlit structure unless he is the owner of that structure (makes sense, right?). So anything that I see out there will not be disseminated to other pilots outside my own company.

2. Many of us do not have terrain/obstacle warning systems installed in our aircraft.

3. Many of us fly unstabilized aircraft, which makes makes looking down at a chart in your lap while 900 AGL at night in 4 miles viz not a very good idea.

4. Goggles have saved my life on one occasion, when I otherwise would have had intimate contact with a 1470 ft antenna with lights OOS in a dark region that I was diverted through. I was at 1400 AGL at the time, under a cloud ceiling that prevented cruising any higher.

5. Those of us who conduct mostly scene flights, are regularly flying in unfamiliar areas- we are not flying regular routes.

My point is that we still don't know all the factors surrounding this accident. We do know that the pilot was in the process of diverting to a different hospital, and that might have been why he hit the wire. Here in the US, 700 AGL is generally not considered to be "too low" to fly at night. My company expects a minimum of 1000 AGL, weather permitting. But we can fly as low as 600 AGL in or local area (25nm radius of the base). While transitioning through towered airspace, we must generally not climb higher than 800 AGL.

This job that we do is not the same job in every region- some are doing mostly hospital transfers, some are flying familiar routes, some are dropping into suburban neighborhoods at night while dealing with a busy Class B surface area(s). Agreements that we have brokered with ATC may require that we transit at lower altitudes in order to avoid heavy terminal traffic. Sometimes we get turned around enroute due to hospital saturation. Single pilot VFR at night in an unstabilized aircraft does not make in-flight flight planning very much fun.

I do know that an autopilot or a second pilot would make my job easier and safer, but I just don't see that happening unless insurance companies are willing to start paying $18,000 USD per patient transport.

Perhaps our medical system here in the US should all be not-for-profit!?


Not trying to pick on you here, but there is no such thing as a not for profit. It is merely a tax category. There have been 3 "not for profit" services in my area that no longer exist. Why? They did not make enough money to justify their existence. When a not for profit makes money beyond expenses and expansions, the board divies up extra as bonuses, new foundation automobiles (Benz for the Docs!) and on a rare occasion a bonus for the employees. Not for profit is not for real

Does the FAA have an equivalent to the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting (MOR) system? In the UK, unlit antennae could be reported via this channel.