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...medical-helicopter industry, the longest inquiry in the board's history. The hearings will be the title fight in a long-simmering argument over medical-helicopter crashes and how to prevent them. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has sole power to regulate helicopter flight, and the Association of Air Medical Services, the industry's main trade group, maintain that most accidents have nothing in common, making it difficult for the FAA to impose tough safety rules. "Each accident has a different set of facts that leads up to it," says Peggy Gilligan, the FAA's top safety official...
...driving your car, talking on your cell phone, adjusting your radio and drinking a Coke in a thunderstorm," says Kevin High, manager of the trauma program at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville and president of the Air & Surface Transport Nurses Association. "Now do it in a helicopter that doesn't have advanced avionics because the company doesn't want to spend the money. That's how you get into trouble...
Asked what's causing so many helicopter crashes, Dawn Mancuso, CEO of the Association of Air Medical Services, says, "I wish I had the answer to that question, because we would have fixed...
...sophisticated safety technologies have crashed, while programs flying small, single-pilot helicopters with nothing more advanced than radio altimeters have perfect safety records. "Operating a medical helicopter is not an inexpensive proposition, and it's not something that people do lightly," says Dawn Mancuso, CEO of the Association of Air Medical Services...
...meantime, some EMS chopper companies are deciding to spend lots of money to prevent what they believe is a common cause of many accidents. Air Methods Corp. of Englewood, Colorado operates 335 aircraft, the largest medical helicopter fleet in the U.S. Last year, the company experienced two fatal crashes in two months. The first accident, in May 2008, may fit the industry's crash profile. The helicopter went down on a night flight to the airport in Madison, Wisconsin, possibly as it encountered rain and fog, according to the transportation safety board's initial report. Three crew members died...