Another One Bites the Dust...

For extensive commentary on this crash, visit the Pilot's Professional Rumor Network by clicking here

                                          Photo by Andrew Milligan

http://www.npr.org/2013/11/30/247906174/police-helicopter-smashes-into-roof-of-bar-in-scotland

EC135T2 Police Helicopter Crashes Through Roof of NightClub

Rescuers worked through the night and into Saturday morning to rescue an unknown number of people trapped inside a Scottish pub after a police helicopter crashed through its roof during a packed concert, causing numerous casualties.
Police said early Saturday 32 people were taken to hospitals across Glasgow after the incident at The Clutha pub in the city center. No fatalities had been reported.

"We are working hard to recover people still inside the building and we will make further details available when we have them," Dep. Chief Constable Rose Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
She said police and air-safety investigators have begun inquiries, but that it is too early to say why the Eurocopter EC135 T2 helicopter — carrying two police officers and a civilian pilot — came down.
Authorities said they had made contact with people still inside The Clutha, where a ska band was performing when the helicopter came down. Search and rescue dogs were on the scene, along with more than 100 firefighters.

Witnesses spoke of people streaming out of the building covered in blood, with gashes and other injuries.
"Given an incident of this scale we must all prepare ourselves for the likelihood of fatalities," Scotland's leader, Alex Salmond, said on his official Twitter account.
The crash Friday at around 10:30 p.m. local time sent dozens of patrons fleeing through a cloud of dust.
Asst. Chief Officer Lewis Ramsay with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said teams — including 125 firefighters on the scene — were working to stabilize the building and get people out.

As dawn broke, firefighters clambered on to the collapsed roof and pulled tarps over the wreckage of the helicopter. There was no word on the fate of those aboard.
Grace MacLean, who was inside the pub at the time, said she heard a "whoosh" noise and then saw smoke.
"The band were laughing, and we were all joking that the band had made the roof come down," she told the BBC. "They carried on playing, and then it started to come down more, and someone started screaming, and then the whole pub just filled with dust. You couldn't see anything, you couldn't breathe."
Retired firefighter Edward Waltham said he ran into the pub to help rescuers, and found on man covered in dust and apparently badly injured.
"My initial reaction for him from my experience was to try not to move him because he had been in a crush situation," Waltham told BBC News. "But as we were lying there other people were literally being pulled out of the pub and more or less thrown on top of us. "People formed a human chain to help pass unconscious people out of the pub so that "inch by inch, we could get the people out," said Labour Party spokesman Jim Murphy, who was in the area when the helicopter came down.
"The helicopter was inside the pub. It's a mess. I could only get a yard or two inside. I helped carry people out," Murphy told Sky News. "I saw a pile of people clambering out of the pub in the dust. No smoke, no fire, just a huge amount of dust."

The twin-engined Eurocopter is widely used by police and ambulance services.

In 2007, a Eurocopter EC135 T2 crashed in southern England. The pilot and his wife were unhurt, but the aircraft was badly damaged. Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch said there had been a failure of the autotrim system which maintains the aircraft's position. The agency recommended changes to correct the problem.

Reported by the Associated Press at NPR.org

Coincidentally, I was making an approach in a single engine helicopter recently (the one in the story was a twin-engine aircraft), and as I approached the over-water helipad I sized up the available forced-landing areas (if my one motor had quit - we would have been "forced to land" to an area - for all intents and purposes - between our feet. I asked the medic, "how strong do you think the ER roof is?" 

"It's pretty strong, I see people walking on it." 

"Do you think it would support this helicopter?"

"No."

Unsung Heroes...

Bobby Mordenti showed up at the hangar today, looking no worse for the wear. Amazing, considering what happened to him a few weeks ago. He was standing on a ladder, waxing the tail boom of  his aircraft, and fell. The ladder made a racket - thank-goodness - and the firefighter-medics here at the base went to see what was going on. One of them began treatment and the other came running inside to get more stuff and call for help. Bobby was out-cold on the concrete, with a plate-sized circle of blood coming from the split in his head.

Ouch.

Bobby has been a "wrench" for longer than some of his pilots have been alive. When speaking with him, a sense of camaraderie develops quickly. Hangar talking is good stuff - a pilot who asks questions and listens can learn something. Decades ago, Bobby sailed his boat to Charleston, South Carolina for a job as the mechanic for an EMS helicopter there; the Medical University of South Carolina's MeducareAir. When he was getting tied up at the dock, a kid working at the marina named Jess Perry helped him. They struck up a friendship, and Jess ended up going to Embry-Riddle and getting his Airframe and Powerplant certificate.

Jess was in Savannah maintaining a BK-117 when I showed up in 2000, after fleeing a Pennsylvania winter. We worked together four years. For years after I left, I would call and ask his advice about this or that happening with a helicopter, and he never complained or griped - he just kept giving up the gouge.  Jess spent twenty or so years himself as the LifeStar-Savannah mechanic, and did a wonderful job keeping a great ship in the air.

Jess now lives a "normal" life working for Gulfstream. I can't say that I blame him. A HEMS mechanic's life is grinding. They are on-call 24 hours a day, with perhaps one or two weekends off a month; by that I mean away from the base with the pager turned off. For the privilege of having a day off, they are usually responsible to cover another mechanic's base so that guy or gal can have a day off - it reminds me of the old HEMS pilot's "Chinese Vacation." If the helicopter god's are angry, and both ships break, there is hell to pay.

I don't know how they do it, these "knuckle-busting" trouble-shooting quiet-professionals. They have to get the aircraft exactly right every time or else, in the face of constant pressure for more in-service time. Now days scheduled-maintenance has to be performed during the hours when flight requests are least likely - this is when most humans are sleeping - and this mid-night labor often occurs out in the open on an exposed helipad; by flashlight. And guys still sign up to do it. When vendors had hospitals as customers, this wasn't how things were done. Maintenance was understood to be part of aviation, and it was done as required and when required - rarely in the middle of the night by a single mechanic out in the open. What kind of signal do we send to mechanics about their value to the organization when we treat them with so little regard? When we make a job so distasteful that the best and brightest, like Jess Perry, leave the workspace, what does that leave us with? How deep into the labor pool will we have to dip before we scrape the bottom?

With the advent of community-based operations, the aviation-services-vendors have become their own worst customers, demanding things that, in the past, would not have flown. And the mechanics have suffered.

I wonder why we don't make more of a fuss about the guys (and gals?) who keep our butts alive by providing us safe aircraft to fly. We have our professional organizations, and they recognize the Nurse or Medic or Pilot "of the year" but never have I seen a mechanic's face in a trade publication being honored for the huge part they play in a successful HEMS enterprise. Maybe it's time for AMMA. The Air Medical Mechanics Association... What the hell? All the other groups have their alphabet clubs.

They are kind of like bass players or drummers in a rock-star band. We couldn't do this business without them, but they toil in the background, unseen, unheard, and largely unappreciated. They receive polite applause, because it's obligatory. But they are never recognized for being the absolute rock-solid foundation upon which safe aviation operations stand. When Omniflight Helicopter's owners decided to do away with their own ability to fix helicopters - it spelled the end of the company.

Maybe times are changing.

There is a new breed of mechanic coming along now, and they are too smart and too cool to stay in the shadows. One is a young fellow named John Janiszewski. John decided to highlight the fact that "wrenches" are indeed "rock stars" and created a company selling Aircraft Mechanic Shirts (and other cool stuff).

                                         Photo from http://www.aircraftmechanicshirts.com/
                                         Property of John Janiszewski

He creates shirts and other items that make clear how much we need a good mechanic to fly sick people - indeed to fly at all. On top of this, John is a working HEMS mechanic, maintaining a helicopter on the line. When you go to Johns online "store" be sure and check out his blog post about using social media to enhance your business. I did, and it makes perfect sense. He is a real guy, with a bunch of real good products, and you can actually speak with him.

For a neat little video about John and his company, click here!

That young man's going places...

And maybe - thanks to people like John - and his products - we can bring  bring  mechanics out of the background - to the front of the stage. Like the rock stars they are!

                               Photo courtesy of Mike Harrington. Flight Engineer, Crew Chief,
                               Helicopter Mechanic!

safe flights...

What if?

Dennis was excited.

This was going to be his first ever patient-loaded instrument flight in the beautiful helicopter he had recently been hired to fly. As his base had just stepped up to instrument-flight-rules (IFR) capability, everyone was still learning - but he felt confident in his ability to get the aircraft, crew, and patient to their destination under IFR as the sole pilot. He had just completed an IFR flight from his base in Charleston to this little hospital in Sumter, using the precision lateral and vertical guidance provided by the instrument-landing-system  (ILS) at Shaw Air Force Base, conveniently situated near the hospital. After breaking out of the clouds on the glide slope, he had cancelled his instrument clearance and proceeded under visual-flight-rules (VFR- able to see out the windows) the short distance to the hospital. With the only IFR helicopter in the region, Dennis understood that business was going to pick up when weather conditions went down and prevented the VFR helicopters in the area from flying.

The medical crew was down in the hospital picking up the patient, a 54 year old man who needed to go the heart hospital in Columbia to have his pipes cleaned. Years of a fat-rich southern diet had slathered deposits all over his heart's supply tubes; the ones that, in a healthy person allow a flow of blood to provide oxygen and energy to the heart's muscle tissues.

The flight-assignment was ready-made for an IFR-capable helicopter. While the ceiling was low at 800 feet above the ground;, underneath visibility was excellent at more than six miles. The temperature was sixty degrees Fahrenheit, so icing would not be a factor at the planned altitude of 4000 feet. The atmosphere was stable, with no convective activity observed or forecast. Winds aloft would not create turbulence, and none was forecast.

Dennis' training had been typical for his industry. His employer had a training program that met with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements, while not being extraordinarily expensive. The HEMS industry is relatively low-paying, and has high turnover, so a large part of any operator's budget is spent on initial training. Training first focuses on operating a "normal" aircraft in visual conditions both day and night, then deals with emergency situations and aircraft malfunctions. Once the new pilot has mastered the aircraft and can deal with malfunctions, he or she is given some time to gain operating experience and learn on-the-job. After six months or so; if the program operates under IFR, the new pilot's instrument-flight training takes place. Pilots are taught how to plan and prepare for flight under Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) in a time-compressed situation. Steps that might take a few hours are distilled down to what can be accomplished in about fifteen minutes, allowing a launch within twenty-five or thirty.

The "E" in "HEMS" is for Emergency. The clock is ticking.

A laminated flow-chart is often used as a checklist to make sure that no planning-steps gets missed, like fuel required, primary and alternate destination-weather requirements versus current and forecast conditions; and notices-to-airmen about the condition of the departure, destination, and alternate airports and their instrument landing equipment. Plan complete, the pilot normally calls a flight service station and files the proposed flight plan. With the plan on file, the next step is determining how the actual clearance from Air Traffic Control will be obtained. If the location allows communication with ATC by radio, that method can be used. If not, a clearance to enter controlled airspace under IFR can be obtained over the phone, which means ATC saves the airspace around the departure location for the exclusive IFR use of  the departing aircraft until it can be picked up on radar, positively identified, and have any needed changes to routing or altitude transmitted and received. Because phone clearances tie up vast sections of airspace, their life is limited, with a "clearance-void" if not off (the departure airport or heliport) within ten minutes or so.

Dennis' crew walked up the ramp, and with the help of the hospital's security guard, they loaded the patient into the back of the aircraft. Dennis stood back and made sure that the doors were closed correctly, verified that no seat-belts or straps were hanging out, checked the latches all the way around the aircraft, he even dropped down and looked underneath for leaks or anything amiss. Then he strapped in, his mind miles ahead of the aircraft. He knew that, like marriage, IFR is easier to get into than out of. An aircraft departing visual conditions for flight in the clouds goes from being able to see out the window and what's coming to being "blind." Once in the clouds, a transition back to visual conditions often requires a descent, and places the aircraft near hard things like towers, buildings, terrain, and even other aircraft flying visually and not under air traffic control. While going into the clouds can occur almost anywhere, getting out of them safely is a different story.

Dennis started both engines of the aircraft, and performed the functional checks of the autopilot and other systems. He notified his communications center that he was preparing to depart, and would be talking to and flight-following with ATC;  and that for the duration of the flight the medical crew would handle com-center calls. Because Shaw is so close to the hospital, Dennis was able to call the tower directly and announce his intentions to take off. He asked for his clearance over the radio, holding his pencil over his knee-board upon which was a sheet of paper with the letters C R A F T printed down the left margin, as the mnemonic for "clearance limit, route of flight, altitude enroute, frequency for departure, and transponder squawk code."

"ATC clears Medevac helicopter November 12345 to Columbia Downtown airport via direct. Climb and maintain 2000 feet, expect 4000 feet 10 minutes after departure. Departure frequency will be 1 2 5 point 4. Squawk six five six two. On departure maintain heading 135 degrees to stay clear of the Shaw final approach course,   Shaw winds are 180 degrees at six knots, altimeter two nine eight six. Take-off will be pilot's own risk; area not visible from the tower.  Shaw using runway two two right..."

Dennis read back his clearance, once again verified that the aircraft's systems were normal, checked that the crew and patient were ready, and asked for help, "okay guys clear me all the way around and overhead and here we go."

Once airborne and turned to 135 degrees, Dennis pulled in power for a 1000 foot-per-minute climb at 100 knots airspeed. He had preset the heading and vertical-speed bugs, and when he coupled the autopilot to the flight controls he relaxed his grip but didn't let go completely until making sure that everything was going to work correctly. He felt a gentle movement through the aircraft as the system took over and then moved his hands away from the cyclic and collective, and set his feet on the floor. He had pre-selected 2000 feet as the level-off altitude, and knew that when the aircraft reached that altitude and stopped climbing,  it would accelerate to somewhere between 120 and 130 knots, which was just the speed he was looking for. They flew into the base of the clouds at 1000 feet on the pressure altimeter, so he made a mental note of the fact that the bases were around 800 feet above the ground, in case he had to come back, glancing at the radar altimeter to make sure all the numbers fit.

"Medevac copter 345 - Shaw tower - contact departure, good day sir."

"345, wilco."

Dennis had preset the departure frequency in the radio so all he had to do was press the flip-flop button and he was on the correct freq. He listened for a second to make sure the channel was clear, then transmitted,
"Shaw departure control, this is Medevac 'copter 12345, climbing through one thousand three hundred for two thousand. Heading 135 degrees."

"Medevac 345, Shaw departure; good morning. Climb and maintain four thousand, proceed on course direct Columbia Owens."

Dennis adjusted the target altitude to 4000 feet, and pressed the direct-to button on the Garmin, noted the new course to be flown, then considered whether to use the heading-bug to turn the aircraft or the NAV feature of the autopilot. It was at this instant that disaster struck.

Turbine engines produce incredible amounts of power from relatively small packages, by super-efficiently turning jet fuel into heat-energy. As part of this process, components rotate at extremely high rates, sometimes exceeding 60,000 revolutions per minute. A tremendous amount of heat, as much as nine times the boiling point of water, or  900 degrees centigrade, must be handled by lubrication systems and cooling airflow. As long as oil and air flow as designed, the engine screams contentedly and the rotors keep turning. Interrupt the flow of air or oil however, and a turbine won't go. It was ironic that the patient on this flight had a heart with small channels that were blocked; because the number two engine had the same sort of problem. Only the engine's blockage, caused by the repeated super-heating of lubrication oil and the residue left behind by a phenomenon called coking, wasn't starving a muscle of oxygen - it was starving a bearing of oil. As the lower oil line became more and more clogged over time, the amount of oil flowing to the bearing decreased. It was Dennis' bad luck that the instant when the lack of oil flow caused the bearing to overheat and seize - with a tremendous BANG - occurred when they were in the clouds.

An "occluded" oil line - coking, discovered prior to failure.

A coked bearing... discovered prior to failure.
Photo credit: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2745290

While Dennis' training had prepared him to deal with an engine failure in visual conditions - when he could see the ground and where he needed to go, at no time had he been trained by his employer to deal with such an emergency while in the clouds. The terms "land as soon as possible" and "land immediately" take on a new flavor when one is in the clouds - and it tastes like copper on the tongue.

This is a shortcoming of the training provided to many EMS helicopter pilots flying under instrument flight rules in instrument conditions. Emergency procedures - like losing an engine (or both), or control of the fenestron, or a hydraulic boost system - are covered in class and practiced in a traffic pattern at an airport. This is part of the "VFR" training that all pilots receive. If we fly a helicopter IFR in IMC, we need to keep in mind that any of the malfunctions we prepare for in VFR conditions can happen to us while IMC. And we need to have a plan.

A simulator would be the best and safest way to prepare for this. Barring that, scenarios talked out while sitting in the aircraft, putting hands on the switches and knobs and controls that would actually be moved is better than ignoring the possibility that a problem might occur.

But what about Dennis?

He's cool.

The motor that seized blew up when it tried to stop turning from umptity-thousand RPMs all-at-once. The physics weren't right. Pieces of the motor flew off into the atmosphere, right through the engine-compartment cowlings and the rotor system.  Other pieces went right through the engine compartment fire-wall and fragged the good motor, which failed too. Dennis pushed down on the collective with gongs and bells and lights everywhere. And reverted back to his training.

"SHIT... HOLY SHIT!"  Both generators stopped making power, but the aircraft battery powered the panel and allowed him to keep flying by reference to his instruments. He checked the attitude, heading, airspeed -70 knots! 70 knots! -, and finally found the rotor RPM. It was above normal in the yellow range. "Screw it - leave it there," he thought, " I'd rather it be high than low."

The aircraft was making strange noises as it descended - quickly - but it was still flying - and he was still flying it.

"Shaw! 345! Mayday Mayday Mayday! We've lost both engines and are coming down - where's the airport?"

The voice of calm, "345 --- rrrroger,  I've got you sir - you are three quarters of a mile from the approach end of 4 left or 4 right - the airport is directly north of you now. Winds are 180 degrees at 4 knots, you are cleared to land."

"Okay guys, let's get the O's off, okay, the engines are not coming back;" his voice strained as he reached across to cut off fuel to each engine and blew the fire extinguisher bottles, "okay where are we? Okay 70 knots, rotors a little high, okay aircraft's in trim, somebody call the com-center for an ambulance (the medic had been talking to the com-center in one continuous stream of transmission since the first bang) - okay fly north, okay we can do this..."

The autorotation was different than Dennis was used to, he was on instruments instead of looking outside, and it occurred to him that this was a first-ever event. His brain was firing synaptic-contacts at light-speed, and he was thinking well ahead of the aircraft - as in "in a few seconds I am going to have to," as opposed to watching events happen to him."

They fell out of the belly of the clouds with the airport right where it was supposed to be. "YEAH BABY!" Dennis yelled. "Okay guys, seats, belts, doors, sterile cockpit!" When scared, we revert to our training. "We're ready in back!" Indeed the crew had never been so ready for a landing in their life.

Luck is a bitch. And then sometimes she isn't. Dennis rolled his eyes one last time across the instruments, thinking how strange it was to be flying with so many warning and caution lights lit up.

"Okay, we can do this, okay speed's good, okay we've got the runway, okay two hundred, okay one hundred, decel! fifty, okay here's some collective, hold her off, hold her off, level her up, okay cushion cushion cushion."

Dennis had no idea he was doing it, but he was speaking the exact same words that his instructor had spoken to him over and over during his flight training years before. And just as it had worked then, it worked now. The aircraft dropped smoothly onto the asphalt and slid down the runway, making a loud grinding sound that - truth be told - scared the new flight nurse worse than anything that had yet happened.

A fire truck pulled up alongside the right door - water cannon pointed right at them...

Our training should prepare us for real-world situations. Often it doesn't - it meets a requirement or checks a box. In the first Gulf War, I came under attack by missiles while flying from KKMC to Rafha at night under goggles. We fired flares in self-defense. The thought that went through my mind, as I waited for impact, was that I had never in my life seen a flare launched from an aircraft while wearing goggles. As a topic of discussion for your crew, consider how well  your training program prepares you for the different adverse situations you might encounter.

safe flights...

Update: to hear the audio record of a pilot having a dual engine failure click here

Ice Ice Baby!

It's that time of year for ice on and in the aircraft. Last year, we in HEMS crashed a machine due to liquid water (rain) getting into the skyward facing engine air inlet - which was covered by a particulate (dirt) barrier.
As temps dropped throughout the night, the liquid turned to ice. The crew launched on a flight, and the ice underneath the filter broke loose and got sucked into the turbine a short time after takeoff. The ice destroyed the engine and the aircraft did not autorotate successfully.

A warm hangar would have helped...

A special notice about this is here...

While installing inlet covers is a pain, if a hangar is not available, and it is going to rain on your aircraft as the temperatures drop, it may be something to consider. We at this base are going to have to go out and run the aircraft each cold morning to defrost the blades, or suffer a delay upon activation for a ground run and visual check of the rotor blades. If there is frost on the cars in the parking lot, there is frost on the blades...

safe flights...

Fuelish Mistakes...

Complacency and Fuel Don't Mix...

Jet Fuel.

We use it everyday we work, take it largely for granted, and seldom consider how much trouble it has and will continue to cause. Every step of fuel's existence; production, distribution, dispensation, and consumption creates the chance for human factors or human failings to wreak havoc. Mayhem is waiting in the wings. Just when we think we have everything figured out, someone invents a new way to put bad fuel into a good aircraft, or put good fuel where it doesn't belong.  At best a flight is delayed or cancelled, at worst someone gets hurt or an aircraft gets destroyed.

I was doing some research a few years back, and stumbled across an account of a major fuel spill and accompanying lawsuit at a hospital - involving an aviation-services vendor, and the base mechanic. The fuel system at that location had an underground tank. The pump was situated so that people standing outside, especially with a running aircraft nearby, could not hear it. The mechanic fueled the aircraft and forgot to turn the pump off, so the hose remained pressurized, with only the valve in the nozzle to prevent fuel from flowing. Time passed, and the nozzle valve failed, and the pump did it's job and pumped about a thousand gallons of jet fuel all over the ground. The EPA fined the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the hospital... well, you can figure it out.

You can read about this event here...

Humans.

A couple of weeks ago, I was fueling an aircraft in South Carolina. The base there has a small "portable" fuel tank sitting near their T-hangar at the nearby airport. This system has a smaller-than-normal nozzle, without the rubber-cap that is commonly used to prevent foreign objects from getting inside. As it was the first time using the system that day, I was required by company policy to both sump the tank - draining a small amount of fuel from the bottom of the tank into a bucket - and also to sample the flow from the nozzle. With my medic and nurse watching (we were talking about something important like women, or beer, or fishing) I dutifully pointed the little nozzle into the bucket and squeezed the handle.

Something "foreign" spat out along with the flow of fuel, and each of us blurted, "what's THAT?"  I let the foam clear and watched a tree-frog climb disgustedly from the fuel bucket and hop off to the showers, or where ever tree frogs go after swimming in jet fuel. If it hadn't been the first fueling of the day, and I hadn't checked the fuel into the bucket, that frog would have gone into our fuel tank...

Another incident similar to this happened to a friend of mine. They were flying from Columbia to Charleston South Carolina in a twin-engine BK-117, with two supply tanks being fed by transfer pumps in main tanks. As they rode along, the pilot noticed that the level in one of the supply tanks was dropping. What-the-hell?

There happened to be nurse sitting up front for this flight, instead of a medic, as it was an empty leg home and the nurses seldom had the chance. She watched with growing dismay as the emergency-procedure checklist was consulted, circuit-breakers were checked, and the main tank level was verified. The pump was "working," but the level in the tank was going down, and at empty an engine was going to quit. They were over a big swamp, and headed to the closest airport with a runway for a single-engine run-on landing. Most twins won't hover on one motor...

Inexplicably, just as they neared the Orangeburg airport, the level began to rise, and soon indicated topped-off.  "Let's go home," they said and flew on to their base. It wasn't until later that the zip-lock bag that someone had dropped into the fuel-tank and missed during final inspections was discovered floating around inside the main tank. When it sloshed up against the inlet hole for the pump, fuel stopped moving. This happened twice to this particular base which is why they knew what to look for.

Negative habit transfer: Many aircraft have airframe mounted (in addition to the filter built into the engine) fuel filters, and on some aircraft these filters are designed to be drained or purged each day, to allow water out. But not all filters are so designed. In one recent case, a pilot who had  transitioned from a Bell 206 and was used to draining his filter elected to drain the filter on his "new" aircraft. This allowed air to get into a space it shouldn't have, and resulted in an engine flame-out at a high-hover, and significant damage.

Speaking of the Bell 206 and it's filter, there is a sequence of steps used for this purging. I knew a pilot once who decided that the way the steps were written was dumb, because he routinely got fuel all over himself from the pressurized spray hitting the engine compartment deck and splashing up. He decided to change things up, and open the drain valve and then turn on the pump and let it flow. Only he got distracted one day and forgot to close the drain after turning off the pump. On his next flight, he flew from one platform in the Gulf of Mexico to another - thankfully very close - platform, at which an oilfield worker who was waiting for a ride commented on the steady stream of fuel draining from the aircraft as it came in to land...

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. If the fuel boost-pumps mounted down in the fuel tank hadn't been putting more fuel into the filter housing than the engine was taking out, the engine would have sucked air and quit. Never deviate from an established procedure.

I did some work at a hospital in the mid-west once. I asked the guys there about sumping and sampling the fuel from the hospital's tanks, which were located well away from the dispensation point. "The mechanic takes care of that." I wonder how many times a pilot has taken it for granted that someone else is making sure the fuel going into the aircraft that he or she will soon climb into is actually clean and safe for use.

Day after day, when we take a sample and it comes out clean and bright, we are gradually reassured that our fuel procedures are okay, and if we miss a sample now and then, it won't matter. This is complacency trying to kill you. Perhaps the best scenario is when the base mechanic drives a diesel powered car or truck. Then we know darn well that fuel is regularly being sumped and sampled...

Sumping the aircraft tanks is a pain in the back and knees. Maybe the aircraft didn't fly since yesterday, when you took a sample. All you have to do is rub the mark off the sample jar and change the date... But wait, are you absolutely sure no one tampered with the aircraft? Are you positive no suspended water (in the fuel) has settled to the bottom of the tank? Want to be your life on it?

My current employer requires a letter from anyone we buy fuel from verifying that they comply with established fuel handling procedures. Unfortunately, letter-not-withstanding we don't really know if they have checked the fuel in the truck or tank we are getting fuel from unless we watch them do it, which isn't practical. If they don't have a letter on file, we are required to perform a quality-check on the spot before allowing the fuel into our aircraft. I wonder if anyone has actually done this at an airport - asked for a white bucket and sumped the airport's truck and sampled the hose? Again, it's not really practical in the middle of a patient transport with the crew waiting at the hospital. One thing I always do, letter on file or not, is look the guy in the eye and ask him if HE checked the fuel that day. I want to hear it from his mouth. Draining some fuel from the aircraft after fueling is complete is another option for checking the quality. I have cut a plastic water-bottle in half, wiped it out, and checked the fuel after buying it from a place I deemed sketchy.

We use fuel every day we work, and it's always ok - but there was that time in Savannah when I pumped a mayo jar full of water and mud from the base's filter-vessel. Now that got my attention. I picked up the radio and called us out-of-service. Then I went underneath the BK with another jar.

Once, while flying in Pennsylvania, I slid underneath a backup BK that Keystone (the old Keystone - gone now) had issued us. I went to push up on the little belly-drain plunger. It resisted, because the aircraft had recently been painted, and over-spray got on the plunger. I pushed harder and up the plunger went, and fuel flowed into my coke bottle. Then I relaxed upward pressure on the plunger, and it stayed "in". And fuel continued to flow. There I was laying underneath a helicopter with my finger on the hole in the drain hollering for one of my crew members. The mechanic had to come in and drain the tank and rebuild the drain. It turned out that not one person had sumped the belly of that aircraft since it left the paint shop - and that had been a while.

Complacency and fuel don't mix.

safe flights

Flashback Friday:Being in the Right Place, At the Right Time, With the Right People...

edited 2/13/15

I was laying in bed the other morning, thinking about speaking to an international audience who were going to be listening to me not because they had to but because they chose to;  a first-time event.  I teach subject matter that is required by CAMTS, and the Code of Federal Regulations:  the body that certifies air medical transport companies and the FAA.  Thus far the folks in my classes have been there because the boss said so. I was trying to sort out how to approach the problem of being meaningful, and how to relate to the audience. Sitting in front of me would be all sorts of people filling all sorts of roles in health-care, from senior leaders to the newest entry-level healthcare provider, from pilots to paramedics to professional safety managers.

Finally I decided to just talk to the people who work where the metal meets the mud; the flight crews. When I lecture - I am talking to them, because I want them to stay alive. Tragically, as I was thinking these thoughts three persons were losing their lives in a helicopter.

In our industry, safety folks are all about implementing "safety-management-systems." One organization after another touts the fact that they have "exited level one, or two, or three" and so on,  and to be sure I hope that eventually these things will help prevent accidents. But what about not dying right now? I attended a class in which a very smart, educated, and thoughtful pilot and safety executive put up slide after slide explaining that there really are lots of players in our game, and any one of multiple contributing factors can be why we crash aircraft and kill people. Good Stuff. How do I stay alive.

What about you, dear pilot, or nurse, or medic, or RT? What will you do to stay alive throughout your flying career? Do you have any personal strategies, or tricks, or philosophies on how to not get dead? If not, perhaps your should give this some thought. Because what we do is dangerous.

—According to the American Journal of Clinical Medicine (Winter 2009 issue) after assessing past statistics then projecting them forward, they predicted that if you fly in a HEMS helicopter and do that job for twenty years, you face a 40 percent chance of losing your life.

Before I started writing this, sitting in my sun-room on a Sunday morning, I was reading the weekend-edition of the Wall Street Journal. This is a great paper, with tons of information that is way over my head, and - my favorite part - book reviews and excerpts. One article covers Dr. Thomas Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard, and his new book "Eugene Braunwald and the Rise of Modern Medicine." In this article there is a line about Dr. Braunwald; "over six decades, he (Braunwald) was repeatedly in the right place, at the right time, with the right people."

BAM. Put the paper down and go get the computer. Start writing. (If you are not yet a blogger, this is how it goes. You are doing something and all the sudden...)

This is my advice to you, dear HEMS person who climbs into an aircraft and takes to the sky. Seek always to put yourself in the right place at the right time with the right people. It's as simple as that. If you are not sure where the right place is, educate yourself. Your heart and your head will tell you about the people. The time is now.

In the right place... I now fly a single engine aircraft. I have dedicated myself over the last year to continuously evaluate if I am in a position to survive the loss of that one engine. When I take off, I fly as close as possible to the way the operators manual says I should, at max-continuous power, at best-climb speed, to an altitude allowing a safe landing should my engine fail. I deliberately fly as if the motor is going to quit, even though the odds are that my engine won't. If I am not in the right place, I try and get there as quickly as possible. My new flying style elicits comments from the back like, "wow, I never saw this view from such a high altitude," and "gee, things sure look different from way up here." This at two thousand feet above the ground! Why do we persist in flying so low?

(added 2/13/15: There is an increased industry/FAA interest in over water flight. If you fly a single engine helicopter over water without floats and vests, I recommend you fly at an altitude or on a path such that no person could ever misunderstand or question your ability to reach the nearest shore. Such a misunderstanding got an excellent pilot - who formerly flew the president of the United States - fired.)

By way of explanation...The odds of a sprag-clutch failing to engage on engine-start are probably a billion to one. That happened to me in a BK, and resulted in around a million dollars worth of damage to the aircraft I was in command of. I am not immune to bad fortune. If an engine is going to quit, I take it for granted that it's going to quit on me. I don't want to be in the wrong place when it happens.

With the right people... I heard a story not long ago about a crew heading out to do a PR flight. There was a seasoned pilot at the controls, and a seasoned crew in back. Sometime in flight, or perhaps after landing and on shutdown, the paramedic smelled fuel. He keyed up the mic and announced "I smell fuel." The pilot acknowledged the message and continued on with what he was doing. They shut down and got out, and the pilot wasn't taking any actions related to the fuel smell. The medic began to look into all the openings in the side cowls and observed fuel dripping from a filter assembly. He said, "hey, we have a fuel leak!" The pilot looked and said, "don't worry about it, it's just a drip, these things do that," and walked off to check out the PR.

Time passed and they prepared to leave. The medic asked the pilot again about the fuel leak, the pilot became irritated and told him to get in.

The medic sat still for the engine start and run-up, then announced, "Hey I forgot something, I have to get out for a second." The pilot went back to idle and the medic climbed back out and with his flashlight peered through the opening in the cowl. Jet fuel was spraying in a gusher from the filter assembly...

The flight team in question subsequently decided that this pilot wasn't "the right people," and they cut him loose. Pilots reading this are perhaps excoriating me right now, and to be sure any of the people involved with our work can have the "wrong stuff." Whatever - your job is to actively monitor who YOU are flying with and make sure they are right for you, and for your safety. And you friend have to be the right person too.

At the right time... Our business is one of extreme consequence. A failure or mistake by a surgeon might lead to the death of a patient. A failure by any of us might lead to the death of all of us. So there is no "right time" to do things right. We have to do the right thing every time. All the time. We might let things slip or cut a corner, and get away with it. That will lead us to slip more and more often and eventually we will get caught. Conversely we might let things slip once - and that will be the day... We just don't know - so our job has to be done deliberately, and thoughtfully, and cooperatively - right now

If you are going to fly for two decades, and you don't want to be one of the  forty-percent, make sure you keep yourself in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

safe flights

Impressions from the Air Medical Transport Conference

We made it home safely from AMTC. This was my first time going in over a decade, and to be honest I only went because I wanted to be a presenter, and get some exposure for my business, AMRM Training Solutions. My first impression upon entering the exhibit hall was that it was smaller than I remember it from Orlando, but that may be due to the fact that the last "show" I went to was the Heli-Expo in Houston - and it is a monster. Still, there were plenty of exhibits to see, lots of vendors, and lots of shiny new helicopters to drool over. We even got to see the new split-personality helicopter that will soon be flying sick people in West Virginia and Ohio.

Yes, there are two paint schemes on one brand new Eurocopter EC-130, the newer, fatter, tour-friendly version of the Astar. You could probably walk around the patient in that cabin, but it still only has one motor and is restricted to visual-flight-rules ( no flying in the clouds). This machine is a cooperative risk/reward sharing venture between two organizations. It is more Aerospatiale (French)  than MBB (Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm), with it's Starflex rotorhead (smoother in turbulence than the rigid system on the German machines) and it's Fenestron "Fan-in-Fin" shrouded tail-rotor. Pilots love it.

I saw Rick Hassman, an old friend and boss from my days with CareForce in Columbia SC,  Rick is now a VP with AvstarMedia, one of the two main computer-based-training suppliers we in HEMS use. He is a genuinely decent and honest man, and AvstarMedia was lucky to get him. It was nice to see him smiling and well. I think he is drinking from the fountain of youth.

We also stopped by the booth housing RSQ911 Solutions. A great lady and RN named Kelly Hawsey is involved with this organization, and it was nice to catch up with her and hear some history of the old, original "LifeReach" program that served Columbia, South Carolina so well for so many years. They were one of the first programs that had to deal with competition with another HEMS provider setting up shop "right-next-door," and they did it with grace and professionalism.

RSQ911 Solutions provides a customized customer satisfaction survey for air and ground ambulance providers to collect feedback on their crew interactions.  emsCharts has a collaborative partnership that connects our web-based patient data collection and incident reporting to RSQ911 Solutions' online survey tool. The streamlined functionality allows EMS agencies to easily connect a particular patient event to survey feedback from hospital personnel and other EMS on the scene, as well as feedback from patients and their families.

This was the year of the T-Shirt at AMTC. It seemed as if everyone except EMSFLIGHTCREW was giving them away. We have enough T-Shirts to star as Gunny Highway now - but no coozies. One savvy media company held a "put your shirt on now for a chance to win $500" event, and red shirts were everywhere. Nice work...

Golden Hour Data Systems sponsored a free beer-fest each night at a local disco-joint, and attendees took full advantage. Thank you! There were a whole bunch of blue ink-blots on the inside of right-wrists each morning, and some red eyes to go along with them. People got to let their hair down, let loose, and bond. I suspect the bonding was both vertical and horizontal - it's a conference after all.

I attended a class on high altitude EMS and rescue operations put on by a fellow who I totally misjudged on first impression. I sat down thinking he was a wacker from the sticks; I left his class thinking he was a Superman, Super-medic, and life-saving Angel for volunteering to spend two weeks on Denali at 14,000 feet living in a tent and taking care of sick people. That class was a high point of the conference.

Another high point was getting to hear General David Petraeus speak to the conference as Keynote Speaker. It was a little disappointing to find out, at literally the last second, that he wouldn't actually be "there" and instead would attend via video link. But, had he been on stage, I would have been looking at one of the two jumbo-screens anyway, so it worked fine. He spoke at length, and with humor and wisdom in equal parts. He could see us, and hear us, and took questions from the audience. I am glad the bullet that went through him during a training accident went through the "a"  in Petraeus vice the A in Army... What a coincidence that the surgeon who saved his life at Vanderbilt was named Frist and would go on to fame of his own.


                                                        "The business end of a Bell"

As I said, I went to promote my business, AMRM Training Solutions, thinking that being a speaker and letting people experience my product first hand would be better (and cheaper) than renting a booth and telling them how great it is. I got the idea to be a speaker from an email that was sent out early last year asking pilots to volunteer to speak at AMTC. I did and it was a great experience, with only one extremely sad and uncomfortable moment. During my presentation, I did a case study on a fatal accident, linking it to the hazardous attitude known as get-home-itis. When I finished a fellow walked up to me, thanked me, then asked if I knew that the same program had lost another aircraft and crew that morning. Lord have Mercy. I didn't know and regret terribly choosing that crash to study - unfortunately there are plenty.

 Even if you aren't interested in promoting a business, or speaking on a topic that interests you, I encourage you to attend the conference next year in Nashville if you work in HEMS.

I know a lot of HEMS pilots think AMTC is a waste of time; and primarily for clinicians. The fact is that it is our fault for not taking our place at the table. Only 17% of attendees this year were pilots, and if we won't represent ourselves who will - a non-pilot?. Anyone who has been around HEMS for awhile has something to offer, and would enjoy the experience. I watched a young communications-specialist who was as nervous as could be struggle through a class on communications. It was a good experience for him, and I learned something. I laughed out loud when Rex Alexander told me the story of the speaker he was coaching who decided at the last minute, after being "mic'ed up" for his class, that he had to use the toilet. He did so "hot mic," and returned to a room with the ice broken. Speakers receive a free night's lodging and a free registration to the show, so you get three days of edutainment for one hour of speaking. And you get to enjoy the sense of giving something back to your industry. If you don't like the way HEMS is now, here's your chance to change it.

On the last night of the show, we were having beers in the Hilton's beach side bar and grill. There are fire rings outside with seating.  I noticed a group of conference-folks laughing and having a good time, and thought to myself how that picture would nicely sum up the experience of attending a conference in Virginia Beach. I finally screwed up the courage to go out and introduce myself and ask for permission to take their picture. The ladies exclaimed, "Dan - we were in your class and it was the best class in the conference!" followed up with "yes, you can take our picture." So we laughed and I said, "don't look at me, just act like you are talking and having fun. (something I learned recently from Keith Colodny who owns Precision Aerial Filmworks and is a flight medic)

                                  This is what happens at AMTC after the days "work" is done...

I understand that if a business comes away from a conference with one or two new customers, things went well. I had a great meeting with a safety-manager from a flagship program in the northeast, and hope to spend time with them next spring. My old chief-pilot, Colin Henry, watched my presentation, and told me plainly the next morning that I will be speaking at MedFlight of Ohio next year.. So my trip was productive, and informative, and fun.

I hope to see you next year in Nashville and...

Safe Flights.