Night Medevacs

[Doc]

Over on the accident form we have the discussions going about night medevacs.
While there will always be a need for emergency "right now" flights, I must wonder sometimes if the "urgency" really is worth the risk. Somebody needs to be held accountable for decisions made to fly these trips in the middle of the night. A "real" emergency, nobody will ever question, but I can't count the number of times I was dispatched at oh dark thirty to pick up some patient who had an appointment in the "Big" city the following afternoon, and missed Bearskin/Wasaya etc.
These can be pretty nasty nights. Ground fog, rain, snow (sounds like an ad for US Mail) inflight ice, etc. Pilots have been up all day...you know the story...boohoo, right? Shoot the approach to minimums, only to have the "patient" walk out to the airplane wearing a sling, of suffering from a cold, or hungry, or lonely.....
None of these flights could have waited till the next scheduled flight? Or day break?
Don't even get me started on the three hundred pounders we carried on, but were miraculously recovered enough to get off the number 9, and walk to the ambulance.
How about we ensure these medevacs really are warranted before we trundle off in the dead of night to "rescue" some poor chap with a hang nail? A tooth ache? A sprained ankle?
There needs to be follow ups, and people need to be held accountable for poor decisions. Just trying to reduce the risks here folks.
Had a nurse say to me "There was no room on Bearskin....." Jesus H Christ lady! Bearskin left at 14:00....it's 03:25 now!
End of rant....for now.

[AEROBAT]

Most things to do with health care in Canada are a money pit scam. My brother is a Doctor, my wife and daughter are both nurses and regularily they unload on me various horror stories of taxpayer money wasted.

[2R]

Some parts of Canada have some long nights,lasting months.Waiting for spring and daylight is not an option for some folk.
Although it can be weird at 3 am in daylight watching the kids climb power lines and wondering if we will be backed to take them to a burns ward.

[Maynard]

We have te equipment to fly around at night/ifr. Lets figure out how to change the rules so that the pilots aren't sitting around for hours on end waiting for that call in te middle of the night. Instead of 7-7, maybe 10-10 would be more suitable. I don't have the answer...wish I did

[Doc]

2R, I hate to state the obvious, but if you have to fly at night, well then, OBVIOUSLY you do. Your rebuttal is just silly. As Bart Simpson would say "DOH"!

[fish4life]

What's next your going to say some airlines shouldn't be moving freight or hauling fuel at night to ? What about the arctic lets just not fly there in the winter

[willow burner]

Your job as a medivac pilot is to determine if you can safely depart, shoot the approach, come home, and if necessary procede to your alternate, taking into account weather, darkness, equipment, and your own fitness to fly. Once you have made a decision to launch, the rest should be pretty cut and dried on an IFR flight. ( Night VFR is sketchy and best, I'm not talking bout that,)

True, lots of night medevacs could wait for day, but the reason they get dispatched at inoportune times is due to the inexperience or fatigue of the nurse making the call in the community. This is the same reason the trip happens at all. Get rid of that problem, and the number of medevacs would drop off dramatically. And ill bet most medevac pilots wouldn't want that.

So I submit that as a medevac pilot your focus should be on the flight. If it can't be done safely, don't start the engines, whether is a heart attack or a hangnail. That's not your business, and you shouldnt even know. Flying safely is.

There are ways to avoid some of the midnight medevacs, but until the powers that be see that and change policies, pilots have to fly them. They should just be flown with more that the average level of caution, professionalism, and most importantly, detachment from the idea that your going to "save a life".

[Doc]

Your job as a medivac pilot is to determine if you can safely depart, shoot the approach, come home, and if necessary procede to your alternate, taking into account weather, darkness, equipment, and your own fitness to fly. Once you have made a decision to launch, the rest should be pretty cut and dried on an IFR flight. ( Night VFR is sketchy and best, I'm not talking bout that,)

True, lots of night medevacs could wait for day, but the reason they get dispatched at inoportune times is due to the inexperience or fatigue of the nurse making the call in the community. This is the same reason the trip happens at all. Get rid of that problem, and the number of medevacs would drop off dramatically. And ill bet most medevac pilots wouldn't want that.

So I submit that as a medevac pilot your focus should be on the flight. If it can't be done safely, don't start the engines, whether is a heart attack or a hangnail. That's not your business, and you shouldnt even know. Flying safely is.

There are ways to avoid some of the midnight medevacs, but until the powers that be see that and change policies, pilots have to fly them. They should just be flown with more that the average level of caution, professionalism, and most importantly, detachment from the idea that your going to "save a life".

The latest accident was night VFR so maybe you should think along those lines as well. I'm just hanging it out there. I have no dog in this fight.

[oldtimer]

Hey guys, I hear ya and been there, done that and bought the T shirt.
But in B.C, a medevac pilot is a dedecated medevac pilot for a 12 hour shift and that is that. 5 days on, 5 days off. In B.C., if the trip cannot be done within the 12 hour shift, the flight is delayed till the next crew comes on duty and that happens 24/7/365. All it takes is a strong contract and dollars.
Now, as to the condition of the patient and the urgency, the medevac pilots have no say. They just drive the bus.

[The Hammer]

How about we join the 21st century and get LNAV, LNAV+VNAV, or LPV approached to BOTH ends of runway and eliminate ALL circling approaches. Then blow up every NDB and stop wasting $$ maintaining them.

If you aren't GPS certified in the next 18 months then too f'ing bad.

We have LPV equipment but no LPV approaches to use it on, WTF?? Circling with minimums of 800' & 2 miles vis instead. Huh??

[Doc]

How about we join the 21st century and get LNAV, LNAV+VNAV, or LPV approached to BOTH ends of runway and eliminate ALL circling approaches. Then blow up every NDB and stop wasting $$ maintaining them.

A wee bit off topic. BUT I'll buy you the explosives to blow up the bloody NDB towers!!!! Absolute CRAP!!

[spaner]

I think your time would be better spent advocating for enhanced vision for the job at hand.
I agree with what you're saying though, night is dangerous; yes. Will code 1's 2's ever be delayed due to darkness? Nope.

What's wrong with head mounted night vision units?
Turn night into day. A good unit will run about the same cost as a top of the line headset now a days, and I've never seen an LSTC requirement for operation, of either.
New SOP's for two crew ops required?

Just throwing it out there..if it's standard issue for blackhawks...

[Doc]

I think your time would be better spent advocating for enhanced vision for the job at hand.
I agree with what you're saying though, night is dangerous; yes. Will code 1's 2's ever be delayed due to darkness? Nope.

What's wrong with head mounted night vision units?
Turn night into day. A good unit will run about the same cost as a top of the line headset now a days, and I've never seen an LSTC requirement for operation, of either.
New SOP's for two crew ops required?

Just throwing it out there..if it's standard issue for blackhawks...

I kind of am advocating for enhanced vision. Daylight. Until somebody explains the need to fly out a tooth ache at 02:00, I will continue to do so.
Can you see the paranoid headless chickens at Transport Canada allowing the use of night vision equipment? It's not from the Jurassic!

They still think GPS is witchcraft.

[Cat Driver]

Forty years ago Doc, and I and many others were flying DC3's in the North doing NDB approaches in the dark with 400 feet and a mile as our legal minimiums.

Here we are in 2013 and the industry still uses NDB's.

And they still fly Medevacs at night out of exactly the same places VFR in the dark.....

Wow that is progress.

[2R]

Larry was way ahead of all of you guys, he started taking out NDB towers with his DC 3 years ago.He took out the tower in Sachigo.Unfortunately his technique was not very kind on equipment and it was his last attempt to remove NDB towers while airborne.
Word of caution never follow Larry on an ice road after they close the ice roads for the season.He can still find the road even when it is covered by a lot of water.i was lucky i followed his wake as i had lost the road and was starting to get scared that i might miss lunch as they had borscht that day.

[rigpiggy]

When are you good till, when are you fresh. I think I like the BC way better

[guyfullofrage]

I think your time would be better spent advocating for enhanced vision for the job at hand.
I agree with what you're saying though, night is dangerous; yes. Will code 1's 2's ever be delayed due to darkness? Nope.

What's wrong with head mounted night vision units?
Turn night into day. A good unit will run about the same cost as a top of the line headset now a days, and I've never seen an LSTC requirement for operation, of either.
New SOP's for two crew ops required?

Just throwing it out there..if it's standard issue for blackhawks...

Clearly you have no clue about the acquisition and use of NVGs. But I guess you could grab some kind of unit from Bass Pro and have a go..........

[iflyforpie]

I think your time would be better spent advocating for enhanced vision for the job at hand.
I agree with what you're saying though, night is dangerous; yes. Will code 1's 2's ever be delayed due to darkness? Nope.

What's wrong with head mounted night vision units?
Turn night into day. A good unit will run about the same cost as a top of the line headset now a days, and I've never seen an LSTC requirement for operation, of either.
New SOP's for two crew ops required?

Just throwing it out there..if it's standard issue for blackhawks...

I kind of am advocating for enhanced vision. Daylight. Until somebody explains the need to fly out a tooth ache at 02:00, I will continue to do so.
Can you see the paranoid headless chickens at Transport Canada allowing the use of night vision equipment? It's not from the Jurassic!

They still think GPS is witchcraft.

STARS Air Ambulance uses NVGs. Of course, putting them in something that is capable of hovering just about anywhere might be a little easier than a King Air.

[200hr Wonder]

Even the 12 hours on 12 hours off has its draw backs. Namely backside of the biological clock operations. You are more tired at night working in a significantly higher risk operations. It really should be policy that anytime after a reasonable hour, 9 or 10 at night, that if it can wait it does, that is the safest way to do things. Also pilots need to be aware of the limitations of them selves and fellow crew members.

How many on this forum have ever turned down a flight due to crew fatigue? I have. One example I had just returned from an overnight, which as we all know never gives you the best rest. Once on shift had flown a 1.5 leg, quick turned in under an hour .7 hour and then got dispatched to return to base empty to get turned around again, so another .5 leg scramble. Returned to base another .7 and then was requested to go into an under serviced airport without full weather service, just a private AWOS with questionable reliability that does not even report to the AWWS site. So I had another 1.0 flight ahead, to a GPS approached with very high minimums into mountainous terrain, to an airport I had not been to in over 2 years with a green FO who had never been. In addition we where both backside of the clock after a previous 14 hour duty day and duty out overnight. Sure the weather was clear below 10,000' how many of you have the intestinal fortitude to say, no this is got too many links in the accident chain forming already and I am not going to go in there? I did and I feel I made the right decision for the safety of my crew. Lucky where I work I was fully backed by management so there was never an issue.

[spaner]

Obviously you're not going to go full-tactical BNVGs.

http://www.opticsplanet.com/night-owl-t ... nobg1.html

Psss

Anyway, yea, why don't we just keep complaining about having to circle at 500 into a blackhole visually, while IFR!! Meanwhile a G5 gets the latest EV IR prototype system mounted into the panel so they can test a true 0/0 no nav concept.

Hey, I'm no engineer but, forget NVGs for certification. A high power IR projector and goggles seems to be the cheap way to go for northern operations. LNAV, sure seems to have screwed the pooch, right along with the jet pack I was promised.

There are solutions but they won't come from the people making the rules.
How can it be legal to conduct a circling procedure at night, in a black hole, BUT during the day, I have to be clear of cloud...
How does that make sense?

I'm talking about crossing over head the field, on an "A, B", see lights strait down...at night...yup I can circle left through 270 degrees to final, at night.
Same thing during the day, I see the field strait down, but I'm in cloud...can't circle, not legal.

Are night OPS more dangerous? In more ways than we can count; probly fill a good sized binder with the on-the-job-training special procedures...

Ho, and by the way...where'd you get that altimeter setting?..