New rules proposed for medical helicopters

breitbart ^ | 9/1/09 | OAN LOWY and BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE

[Nachum]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday urged the government to impose stricter controls on emergency helicopter operators, including requiring the use of autopilots, night-vision systems and flight data recorders in an industry that suffered a record number of fatalities last year.

The NTSB recommendations for training and safety equipment to the Federal Aviation Administration are in addition to others made in 2006, such as requiring installation of terrain awareness monitoring to help pilots navigate when weather conditions are poor.

The safety board, which cannot require such changes, also wants the Health and Human Services Department to require emergency helicopter operators to meet safety standards before receiving Medicare payments for medical flights. Board members agreed to ask HHS to create safety audits for emergency helicopter operators at their meeting Tuesday and asked NTSB staff to craft recommendations to send to HHS, which would have to adopt the changes in reimbursements.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Count on Democrats to give us regulations that achieve the opposite of their stated goal.

[smokingfrog]

The move to tie Medicare reimbursements to safety standards is a new approach by the NTSB. Oh what a tangled web we weave. The idea of having an autopilot on a medivac chopper doesn't make much sense to me, but some of the other stuff does. That being said, it probably won't make much difference safety-wise. The better equipped they are, the more chances they will take going out to rescue someone when they might not have done so other wise. Bottom line - you make things more expensive.

[KarlInOhio]

Some more people will live because of fewer crashes. Some more people will die because of hospitals no longer affording helocopters and shorter flight range and slower speed because of the weight of the new equipment. I have no idea which will happen more, but I'd be willing to bet on the second.

How many medical helocopters crash now and what are the causes for the crashes? Will the new rules actually stop any crashes, or will the new black boxes just make post crash investigations easier?

[squidly]

There are two kinds of helicopter pilots: Those that have crashed, and those that will crash.

[smokingfrog]

Preview is your friend.

[phrogphlyer]

Bite me. I know lots of helicopter pilots with thousands of hours and no crashes. Must be that Navy training.

That said, these medevac pilots do some of the most dangerous and stressful flying of any civilian helo pilot. On standby, short notice takeoff, landing at unimproved sites, often at night. In my opinion, night vision equipment would be the single most effective safety improvement they could make.

[montag813]

Natasha Richardson died because the Quebec government is too cheap to provide anyone, even the rich and famous, with a medical helicopter ride from a remote ski resort. She rode for 3.5 hours in the ambulance—a death sentence. Gotta love that socialized medicine!

[sten]

Typical... A record number of fatalities... What was the number that requires all the over reach? My guess would be less then 200 accidents nationwide. (complete guess)

[MarMema]

NTSB Reports on Causes of Medical Helicopter Crashes

[papasmurf]

“I’m all for heroes—for the firefighters who climbed up the stairs while the World Trade Center was falling down or anyone else who risks their life to help people,” Salomone said. “But it’s a real tragedy to think someone could die trying to help a patient who didn’t have a life-threatening injury to begin with.”

Sums it up nicely. I'm surprised that LifeFlights aren't dispatched to haul cats out of trees.

[Ronin]

The more expensive you make them, the less likely it is that there is going to be one available when it is needed.

Furthermore, the more gadgets you add to a machine, the more likely it is that one of those gadgets is going to be non-operational when the machine is needed.

The original medevac helicopters were just Bell H-13s with a couple of stretchers bolted over the skids. Primitive, but they worked — and they saved a lot of lives during the Korean conflict.

Rather than adding more regulations, the government should just stay the hell out of the way.

[MarMema]

Yes, yes, yes and thank you.

[MarMema]

this is why I loved your post so much