The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will hold a public hearing on the safety of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) helicopter operations.
The three-day hearing runs February 3-5, 2009, at the Safety Board’s Board Room and Conference Center in Washington, D.C.
Helicopter EMS operations provide an important service to the public by transporting seriously ill patients or donor organs to emergency care facilities. The pressure to safely and quickly conduct these operations in poor weather, at night, utilizing unfamiliar landing sites makes EMS operations more at risk than normal passenger carrying operations.
There have been nine fatal EMS helicopter crashes in the U.S. in the past 11 months, resulting in 35 fatalities. So far in calendar year 2008, 28 people have died on medical chopper flights, the most deaths recorded in a year previously were 18 in 2004. The seven fatal crashes in 2008 to date equal the highest recorded in any previous calendar year.
“We have seen an alarming rise in the numbers of EMS accidents,” said Safety Board Member Robert Sumwalt, who will chair the public event. “This hearing will be extremely important because it can provide an opportunity to learn more about the industry so that possibly we can make further recommendations that can prevent these accidents and save lives.”
The Safety Board believes some of the fatal EMS accidents could have been prevented if past NTSB recommendations had been implemented by the Federal Aviation Administration and the EMS industry.
The NTSB issued a Special Investigation Report in January 2006 that analyzed all EMS-related aviation accidents that occurred from January 2002 through January 2005.
There were a total of 55 accidents that occurred during this 3-year period, involving 41 helicopters and 14 fixed-wing aircraft. These accidents killed 54 people, and seriously injured 19. Analysis of the accidents indicated that 29 of 55 accidents could have been prevented with corrective actions identified in the report.
Witnesses from the EMS community will include pilots, emergency medical personnel, flight operations managers, and FAA regulators. The issues that will be discussed during the hearing will include flight operations, aircraft safety equipment, training and oversight.
The 2006 NTSB report identified the following recurring safety issues:
- Less stringent requirements for EMS operations conducted without patients on board.
- A lack of aviation flight risk evaluation programs for EMS operations.
- A lack of consistent, comprehensive flight dispatch procedures for EMS operations and,
- No requirements to use technologies such as terrain awareness and warning systems (TAWS) to enhance EMS flight safety.
The Board recommended that the FAA require the installation of terrain warning systems on all EMS aircraft. The report reviewed several technologies that can assist in flight operations – terrain awareness warning systems (TAWS) and night vision imaging systems (NVIS). Controlled flight into terrain is a common factor in helicopter EMS accidents that could be alleviated by the use of TAWS. The investigations of 17 of the 55 accidents determined that TAWS might have helped pilots avoid terrain.
In addition to TAWS, the Safety Board found that some EMS operators were using NVIS to enhance a pilot’s ability to avoid terrain. The Board determined that if used properly, NVIS could help EMS pilots identify and avoid hazards during nighttime operations. However, because NVIS are not feasible in some situations such as populated areas with ambient light or numerous streetlights, the NTSB did not make a recommendation on this subject.