The fatal collision Sunday between two medical helicopters in Arizona was the sixth crash involving the emergency helicopters since May, making the last two months one of the deadliest periods in the history of the fast-growing industry....
About 750 medical helicopters are operating in this country, about twice the number flying a decade ago. Medical helicopters were once operated mostly by hospitals, but in recent years private companies, including some that are publicly traded, have come to dominate the industry....
In a report in 2006, [the National Transporation Safety Board] found that operators had failed to develop comprehensive flight risk programs, and that pilots often did not have adequate information about bad weather they might have encountered or equipment to alert them to dangerous terrain....
And here it is:
“The latest spate of accidents has given the board concern that the F.A.A. may not be moving as quickly as necessary,” [NTSB Chairman Mark] Rosenker said in a telephone interview on Monday evening.
So then. The companies that operate the helicopters haven't been doing a very good job and it's all because the FAA didn't make them.
[From Medical Helicopter Crashes Stir Concern - NYTimes.com]
Oh, and there's a footnote.
“The vast majority of patients could have done well in a ground ambulance,” said Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, a former flight paramedic who is a professor at the University of Nevada School of Medicine.
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