Barely a month after a horrific crash raised disturbing questions about Maryland’s emergency medical helicopters, a federal aviation safety panel is warning government officials that they’re not taking flight risks seriously.
The National Transportation Safety Board held its annual meeting Tuesday and voted to add emergency chopper safety to its “Most Wanted” list.
If approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, the new rules would require states to:
– Perform a formal risk evaluation before each flight.
– Draft fixed policies for gauging inclement weather.
– Install terrain awareness systems that warn of danger of crashing into the ground, mountains and some buildings.
“We want to move on this. This needs to be addressed,” board spokesman Keith Holloway told The Examiner. “We want them to take this as a high priority like we do.”
Four people died Sept. 29 after the rescue helicopter they were riding in crashed in the thick woods north of Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County. The chopper disappeared from state radar in heavy weather shortly after taking off from a two-car accident.
State officials have since been trying to explain how they missed warnings — including a Sept. 11 whistle-blowers’ letter that told officials of “deeply troubling latent failures” in the choppers — that the fleet was in bad shape.
And the parents of a teenage girl who died in the Sept. 29 crash while she was being taken to a hospital have publicly questioned whether the helicopter should have been dispatched at all.
The federal safety board urged the FAA to take a closer look at medevac safety in 2006, but the report has been mostly ignored, Holloway said. The 2006 report came out after the board noticed a spike in medical helicopter crashes nationwide.
In the past 11 months, at least nine medical helicopters have crashed, killing 35, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
