Beren's Band roasts air ambulance service in the media

[SuperchargedRS]

But that costs the band money...and requires work and organisation.

It's easier to throw the flightcrew under the bus.

If they crashed or overran the runway this would be your typical...well they had pressure to perform article.

Good on them for saying no. Too bad for the fellow.

Bingo.

Before the regs there is saftey, in EMS it's three to go one to say no and if the pilot made the call that's that.

There are places which I have landed at during the day which I wouldn't attempt at night and or in poor conditions.

Better that fellow die, then a nurse, medic and pilot die, a medical asset (aircraft) be destroyed and the sick fellow still die.

Those idiots on the res need to make their runway longer, or move to somewhere more accessible... or stop biotching when something like this happens.

In EMS you move with purpose, but you don't change a damn thing because of your pt, as far as I'm concerned I'm flying boxes, yeah I hustle to the plane, I'll use medevac call signs and do everything to expedite, but if someone has seconds to live or if it's just a broken leg, I shoot my approach the same, I choose my runway the same and so on. This is EMS 101, if the scene ain't safe, the scene ain't safe.

As for sending another resource to the res, I have no idea how their dispatch system works, so I can't comment one way or another.

Let that fat chief man up, have her say that she EXPECTS medevac pilots and crews to put their lives at risk because her people CHOOSE to live out there, let her explain to the flight crew families how that mans life was worth more then the nurse, medic and pilot onboard, let her explain to the guy having a heart attack that no jet will be there to pick him up because it crashed. What a waste of good air.

[Rookie50]

Forget the "human life" factor then! Call it boxes.

EXACTLY what part of "an agreed upon contract to provide 24 hour service" Per Fly's post DON'T you understand? Its a Medevac CONTRACT agreed to by the province and Lifeflight! Not acceptable when called upon to say -- Sorry -- P--- off we can't help you.

Province, or Lifeflight, is accountable here. If the runway isn't safe, you don't accept the contract. End of story.

" erens River pays a monthly fee to the MB Government air ambulance service (Lifeflight in MB) to provide 24 hour medevac coverage to their community. Whether there are 2 medevac flights or 20 in a month, they pay a flat rate plus per flight rate (which is rack rate at worst). In return, Lifeflight then guarantees certain things to the Community, and everyone is happy. They have a contractual agreement and commitment now. The Berens River community paid for it.

In this particular case, the nurse expressed a strong objection to the comment that The Lifeflight jet does not fly into Berens...as she knew that wasn't the case. Her frustration worsened when she was likely told, we`ll call you back shortly...and shortly became far too long. Try to picture how bad this young man could/would have been, and what the nurses were dealing with? When the government failed to provide a service that they are contracted and paid to provide...shouldn't the nurses have expected an aircraft in a certain, predetermined period of time? An agreed upon response time before they signed the contract?"

[esp803]

When I was flying medevacs we were never told what was wrong with the patient or how close to death they were, everybody is treated the same. We always assumed it was life and death, and then never pushed the limits. Pushing limits is what gets people killed in our industry, As some one else said, it's not worth loosing two pilots, two medics and the person on the ground for the chance of saving one person.

It was a hit and run, the person at fault is the driver, he should be charged with some degree of murder. Was alcohol involved? Is it a dry reserve? Also, aren't they building the east side road all the way to ZNG?

[CID]

EXACTLY what part of "an agreed upon contract to provide 24 hour service" Per Fly's post DON'T you understand? Its a Medevac CONTRACT agreed to by the province and Lifeflight! Not acceptable when called upon to say -- Sorry -- P--- off we can't help you.

Province, or Lifeflight, is accountable here. If the runway isn't safe, you don't accept the contract. End of story.

And you continue to post while not having a clue. Manitoba LifefLight is operated by the Government of Manitoba and is paid for by provincial funds except for when they attend a reserve, in which case the FNIHB is invoiced, not the band directly.

Lifeflight is the "primary" provider and can service only those communities with proper airport facilities for the Citation they use. Secondarily, there are many private medevac services in Manitoba that can fly in to places like Berens River where the airport can't accommodate the Citation.

It's not the fault of the Manitoba Government that the runway in Berens River is short for the Citation or that it's been that short for DECADES. There is no "contract" in place with any terms or limitations that oblige Lifeflight to service the community no matter what you read on the internet. It's up to the individual communities to come up with a plan for things like medical care and evacuation when necessary. But, as per usual, in reserve communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwest Ontario, they wait until an incident like this to "take action" and usually place blame on the government or society or whatever....as long as it doesn't involve taking responsibility and actually doing something.

[SuperchargedRS]

Forget the "human life" factor then! Call it boxes.

EXACTLY what part of "an agreed upon contract to provide 24 hour service" Per Fly's post DON'T you understand? Its a Medevac CONTRACT agreed to by the province and Lifeflight! Not acceptable when called upon to say -- Sorry -- P--- off we can't help you.

Province, or Lifeflight, is accountable here. If the runway isn't safe, you don't accept the contract. End of story.

" erens River pays a monthly fee to the MB Government air ambulance service (Lifeflight in MB) to provide 24 hour medevac coverage to their community. Whether there are 2 medevac flights or 20 in a month, they pay a flat rate plus per flight rate (which is rack rate at worst). In return, Lifeflight then guarantees certain things to the Community, and everyone is happy. They have a contractual agreement and commitment now. The Berens River community paid for it.

In this particular case, the nurse expressed a strong objection to the comment that The Lifeflight jet does not fly into Berens...as she knew that wasn't the case. Her frustration worsened when she was likely told, we`ll call you back shortly...and shortly became far too long. Try to picture how bad this young man could/would have been, and what the nurses were dealing with? When the government failed to provide a service that they are contracted and paid to provide...shouldn't the nurses have expected an aircraft in a certain, predetermined period of time? An agreed upon response time before they signed the contract?"

Are you a pilot?

So if there was a squall line, hail and lightning, the aircraft and crew should blow through it because they have a contract?

And yeah, it is boxes, the second you start to get the "save the world" complex is the second YOU kill your med crew and pt. and yourself.

Understand the responsibility and what it means to be Pilot In Command.

With our company we know nothing about the pt until we accept the flight, thus no way we can force a flight if it was a little kid that got hit by a car vs. a broken tib fib.

[Rookie50]

Forget the "human life" factor then! Call it boxes.

EXACTLY what part of "an agreed upon contract to provide 24 hour service" Per Fly's post DON'T you understand? Its a Medevac CONTRACT agreed to by the province and Lifeflight! Not acceptable when called upon to say -- Sorry -- P--- off we can't help you.

Province, or Lifeflight, is accountable here. If the runway isn't safe, you don't accept the contract. End of story.

" erens River pays a monthly fee to the MB Government air ambulance service (Lifeflight in MB) to provide 24 hour medevac coverage to their community. Whether there are 2 medevac flights or 20 in a month, they pay a flat rate plus per flight rate (which is rack rate at worst). In return, Lifeflight then guarantees certain things to the Community, and everyone is happy. They have a contractual agreement and commitment now. The Berens River community paid for it.

In this particular case, the nurse expressed a strong objection to the comment that The Lifeflight jet does not fly into Berens...as she knew that wasn't the case. Her frustration worsened when she was likely told, we`ll call you back shortly...and shortly became far too long. Try to picture how bad this young man could/would have been, and what the nurses were dealing with? When the government failed to provide a service that they are contracted and paid to provide...shouldn't the nurses have expected an aircraft in a certain, predetermined period of time? An agreed upon response time before they signed the contract?"

Are you a pilot?

So if there was a squall line, hail and lightning, the aircraft and crew should blow through it because they have a contract?

And yeah, it is boxes, the second you start to get the "save the world" complex is the second YOU kill your med crew and pt. and yourself.

Understand the responsibility and what it means to be Pilot In Command.

With our company we know nothing about the pt until we accept the flight, thus no way we can force a flight if it was a little kid that got hit by a car vs. a broken tib fib.

RS; Yes I'm a pilot, yeah I get PIC, and yeah I've said no to people, and sometimes they weren't happy. Here's option B, take it or leave it, in essence, weathers not acceptable.
As I've repeatedly explained, no I am not blaming the flight crew. I am blaming the breakdown in process that didn't have a night equipment option available, or requested in a timely manner. Nothing to do with the jet flight crew, from my point of view.

There was no hailstorm or preventative weather, thats a red herring. If there was, case closed, right there.

Its the blaming of the native community I don't like. Lets make a reasonable assumption the Province and the band have a contract in place, for day and night service. Therefore, its reasonable to expect these decisions and parameters on day and night ops in which equipment, would be laid out in advance, as well. Day its a jet, night a piston twin (or whatever)

Therefore the response to the nurse; "we don't fly there, end of story", is unacceptable, not from the flight crews responsibility, but operations. Now the runway seems horribly sketchy to me, I'll grant, I wouldn't be thrilled to land there at night in my Cessna. Granted. But if It's unsafe for the available equipment, isn't onus on the province to tell the Band that?

Now if it comes out the province said to the band; beforehand, "we're suspending service at night until the runway is fixed, you are on your own" thats obviously a different story, and the Bands responsibility to deal with.

[EPR]

One would think that if a northern communities only lifeline is in or out by air, that they would have nothing less than an RNAV approach and a decent runway with lighting.
There are still a number of communities that still only have NDB A approaches...time to get with the program Chiefs!
Of course it takes a death to make the powers that be maybe take notice.

[CID]

One would think that if a northern communities only lifeline is in or out by air, that they would have nothing less than an RNAV approach and a decent runway with lighting.

Northern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Northwest Ontario are quite different places than the rest of Canada with respect to First Nations people. First of all, those regions have a much higher percentage of aboriginal people calling it home. About 10% of the population in the major cities in that region are aboriginal compared to a national representation of about 3%. Compare that to the Toronto (GTA) which has 0.5% aboriginal population.

Furthermore, the majority of FN communities are "treaty". The inhabitants can not own land like many of their non-treaty contemporaries that are common in other provinces. Finances for development and maintenance of the reserves are at the whim of the leadership. All money flows through the chief and council and until very recently, there were very few checks and balances to prevent shenanigans. It's not uncommon for the majority of the inhabitants on these reserves to live in squalor while the chief and his/her supporters have big brand new houses and trucks and snow machines etc.

Any "extras" they try to get special money from the various levels of government to throw money at. Look at the recent example of Theresa Spence, the famous chubby hunger striker. She was mad because she wanted "emergency housing" for her reserve but didn't want to explain where the 9 million the government threw at the problem earlier went. She also didn't want people to know that her "people" lived in squalor but she and her husband made $300K a year tax free and were rather comfortable.

It's all about priorities and unless there are drastic changes, these communities will continue to have substandard services, squalid living conditions, non-existent social structure and crime. Lots of crime. I'm not holding my breath.

And to answer an earlier challenge, yes there is vandalism in the "south" of these regions but a quick scan of the regional newspapers will show you that it's just splash-over from the reserves.

It's a complicated and frustrating problem.

[Rookie50]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

So Good ole' boys white people don't vandalize eh? Just a native problem?

And corruption, which is far from confined to native reserves, doesn't make a young man's death OK.++

[Meatservo]

Who makes the decision how long to make a runway, or whether or not the runway is served by an RNAV approach, or the quality of the nighttime visual aids? Some of you guys are making it sound like the chief/band council are the ones in charge of making these decisions. Are they? Because if they are, I can see a problem right there, because obviously community government leaders are usually not aviation people by trade, and therefore don't know anything about how long runways need to be, or what pilots need to see. "Civilians" these days are being deliberately fed stories by the operators and manufacturers about how "aeroplanes fly themselves" and "it's all done by the autopilot", et cetera. Either that or the older people have a vision of a pilot as a "hero" who will "get there or die trying" because of movies and our mythologized past of brave mail pilots and bush aviators who would make it in no matter what. Regular people have no idea what the decision-making process is, or what is at stake, or how a regular guy like you or me, in our capacity as a captain, have to weigh the pros and cons of possibly killing three or four people over the certainty of allowing one to die. Or how it would feel to, for instance, not quite have the required visual reference to land at night safely, do the right thing and go missed, and then find out later that a kid or a nice lady died because you couldn't get her to the hospital. How you sometimes have to try to go to sleep, wondering if maybe you could have done it, even though you know you did the right thing. Medevac pilots HAVE to think about people as "boxes", otherwise they wouldn't be able to live with themselves, or else they would go around killing more nurses and co-pilots than they would saving patients.

"Regular" people don't know any of that stuff. To them we are just drivers and when we can't do something that we apparently managed to do ten times before, to them it's because we didn't do good enough this time. That's the reality you all have to face and it's no good getting mad at someone for not understanding your job as well as you would like. Shrug it off.

It sounds like to me, though, like the Berens River airport needs an upgrade. My question is, are the community leaders responsible for ordering and paying for this upgrade? Is it as simple as deciding at a council meeting that they need to request more infrastructure? No? Then stop blaming them. Of course they're frustrated.

[CID]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

So Good ole' boys white people don't vandalize eh? Just a native problem?

I stand by my earlier comments, CID.

And corruption, which is far from confined to native reserves, doesn't make a young man's death OK.

Umm....Vancouver isn't Regina. Vancouver isn't Prince Albert. Vancouver isn't Kenora. Vancouver isn't Winnipeg. And yes, corruption is everywhere but we're talking about FN communities in central Canada and how it applies to this tragedy in Berens River. You may want to google "straw man fallacy". And I also stand by my earlier statements Rookie, you don't have a clue.

[Rookie50]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

So Good ole' boys white people don't vandalize eh? Just a native problem?

I stand by my earlier comments, CID.

And corruption, which is far from confined to native reserves, doesn't make a young man's death OK.

Umm....Vancouver isn't Regina. Vancouver isn't Prince Albert. Vancouver isn't Kenora. Vancouver isn't Winnipeg. And yes, corruption is everywhere but we're talking about FN communities in central Canada and how it applies to this tragedy in Berens River. You may want to google "straw man fallacy". And I also stand by my earlier statements Rookie, you don't have a clue.

No; excuse me; we are not talking about corruption. We are talking about one incident where in some regard, which has yet to be determined, the system broke down. And trashing the native community as you are doing, is not a solution.

Your bias is obvious. And as far as the aviation component of this discussion, as I understand it you aren't a pilot, so It would appear you don't have a clue in that area.

[CID]

Who makes the decision how long to make a runway, or whether or not the runway is served by an RNAV approach, or the quality of the nighttime visual aids? Some of you guys are making it sound like the chief/band council are the ones in charge of making these decisions.

That's interesting. Do you really think that all the airports in the world are there because pilots decided they should be???

Any community with even the most basic organizational structure forms committees to address the community requirements and desires. Based on those basic requirements, the community leaders seek people like consultants or tradespeople or other specialists to help them develop infrastructure to meet their requirements and desires. Based on those efforts, a budget is set and the community goes about raising money for those services and has the infrastructure built. (or not)

Frankly, it's surprising that you think that the "chief" or "mayor" or "prime minister" for that matter does this sort of thing directly but it's absolutely accurate to state that ultimately it's the chief and council's responsibility to identify the community's requirements, develop a plan, budget money and execute. Unfortunately, they have been failing miserably for decades.

The federal government isn't just going to plant airports all over the place as it sees fit. That would be ludicrous. Did you know that there are remote communities of vacation cabins in the wilderness in Canada that have effective populations larger than Berens River and have NO airport to service them? Would those people be entitled to an airport "just because"? Should the government be scouting out these little population pockets and plunking airports down?

No; excuse me; we are not talking about corruption.

Part of the discussion is about the runway and it's inadequacy and why after many decades it's inadequate for the requirements of the communities. And THAT is the link to the corruption.

You think I'm racially biased and "bashing" native communities. At a human level I am quite sympathetic and I am not a racist. I am merely stating the truth. You should visit a reserve in the area some time. I think you will be quite shocked.

[Meatservo]

That's interesting. Do you really think that all the airports in the world are there because pilots decided they should be???

Of course not. Don't be obtuse.

Frankly, it's surprising that you think that the "chief" or "mayor" or "prime minister" for that matter does this sort of thing directly

I don't.

I'm afraid you mis-read the entire tone of my comment, which irritates me because I spent a long time typing it.

Obviously someone decided how long to make that runway and what infrastructure to install.

If it was the chief and council, then that's your problem right there. Chiefs don't tend to know much about runways. Obviously they had a consultant. Presumably that consultant knew what they were talking about. Maybe they didn't. They probably didn't have jets for ambulances back when the runway was built, and now they do. At some point the level of service changed as a result, and for some reason some people didn't know about it.

My only point was that somehow a couple of people talking out of their asses on the news has got everybody all worked up. Obviously in the case of the community the expectations versus the reality differ with respect to the capabilities of the planes and the airport. I don't find it surprising that a bunch of non-aviation people don't understand that, and I don't really think it's cricket blaming the "ignorance" of the community leadership for the basic lack of infrastructure here. Perhaps they are to be blamed somewhere along the way, for having a false impression of what their airport might and might not be good for, but my original question was, who is it who decides how long runways are, and whether there is an approach or not? Does a native chief even know what an "approach" is? Maybe before you blame her for not buying one, you should ask how in the world was she supposed to know they even existed? This whole thing is just a mis-understanding. Now that this has happened, maybe there will be some runway-building action. Often in this world, someone has to die before anything gets changed. Maybe they will name the new airport after him.

[CID]

They probably didn't have jets for ambulances back when the runway was built, and now they do.

Why should that be a factor? Manitoba Government Air Service has been running jets since 1981. Plenty of time to think about what the airport should look like. Regardless, Lifeflight isn't the only service available and arguably, the population of Berens River doesn't warrant expanding the runway to accommodate a Citation. If it's been "good enough" for decades, does it really need to be changed? And why stop there? Why not a 737 in case a mass evacuation is needed in the future?

We seem to be caught up in measures to prevent things from "ever happening again" rather than examining the current state of affairs and determining if it's adequate and logical.

You can personalize this by wondering if it was your family member waiting to be transported but that helps nobody. We would likely individually move heaven and earth to save our loved ones but it often isn't practical or affordable or logical to do so.

[Meatservo]

As it happens I agree with you there. I can't remember what this argument is about, to be honest.

[SuperchargedRS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

So Good ole' boys white people don't vandalize eh? Just a native problem?

I stand by my earlier comments, CID.

And corruption, which is far from confined to native reserves, doesn't make a young man's death OK.++

Its called Racism. And you'd be far from the first.

Take a long look in the mirror.

Uh oh, conversation is over guys, some ass hat played the "you're a racist" card, and we all know what that means, anyone trying to defend the medevac is also a "racist", anyone not agreeing with Rookie is a "racist", and so on.

Might as well close the subject before someone's feelers get hurt

Honestly I don't really care what color a idiot is, I still call out anyone who demonstrates idiotic action, or inaction... like having a woefully inadequate lifeline/runway, a idiot.

It's not that I dislike someone's race or sex or whatever, I just don't like stupid, corrupt ineffective people.

[awitzke]

It's not uncommon for the majority of the inhabitants on these reserves to live in squalor while the chief and his/her supporters have big brand new houses and trucks and snow machines etc.

I've been only working here for a few weeks now but in and out of a ton of NW Ontario reserves. Talking to some of the other workers that go in and out, a lot (not all) of the communities are just like this. I had a hold in a reserve that is the highest suicide rate in Canada. The "houses" (read; shacks) I saw were a huge eye opener to how they live up there and should not be habitable. There are no treatment centers in a community of 3000, the power regularly goes out yet there is a 65 million dollar school being built. The priorities are whack out there.

[Rookie50]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjFM_RswttU

So Good ole' boys white people don't vandalize eh? Just a native problem?

I stand by my earlier comments, CID.

And corruption, which is far from confined to native reserves, doesn't make a young man's death OK.++

Its called Racism. And you'd be far from the first.

Take a long look in the mirror.

Uh oh, conversation is over guys, some ass hat played the "you're a racist" card, and we all know what that means, anyone trying to defend the medevac is also a "racist", anyone not agreeing with Rookie is a "racist", and so on.

Might as well close the subject before someone's feelers get hurt

Honestly I don't really care what color a idiot is, I still call out anyone who demonstrates idiotic action, or inaction... like having a woefully inadequate lifeline/runway, a idiot.

It's not that I dislike someone's race or sex or whatever, I just don't like stupid, corrupt ineffective people.

No where in any of my comments did I criticize the medevac Crew. Only the process. Disagree with me if you like. That's nothing to do with my comment.

[mattas350]

I've Been flying medevac around the region for four years now -One additional point here is that Lifeflight in Manitoba is the only carrier other than STARS that of a advanced/critical care level, the other operators are all basic or intermediate care level. This patient being talked about in the article sounds mostly definitely he would of required critical/advanced care equipment and personnel.

Why couldn't the nurse from YBV just jump in the nearest plane and go? Well I asked my flight nurse and she said it is against their nurses code of ethics - to put themselves in a situation where they are not properly equipped and trained for the level of care that is required for the patient and potentially cause more harm than good to the patient as a result.

Now on several occasions Lifeflight has chartered our medevac king air, kicked out our flight nurse out and brought their own med crew and additional equipment they required now granted this was not for intra Manitoba operations but for more longer distance missions mainly to do with organ transplants when the MB Lifeflight citations were all busy or unavailable.

MGAS does have a twin otter but with in being unpressurized and generally not configured for medevac this presents it's own issues.

Seems like more of a system problem, Lifeflight/MGAS needs to have a plan for the advanced/critical care patients in places that the citation cannot go and places that even the private operators will only go into under certain conditions (Poplar River at 2500ft long, Thicket Portage at 1800ft or so, etc), A PC-12 would be a great solution but apparently the PC-12 is not good enough for Manitoba even tho it has proven itself in more challenging regions by both private and government operators (RCMP, OPP)

[TeePeeCreeper]

It's not uncommon for the majority of the inhabitants on these reserves to live in squalor while the chief and his/her supporters have big brand new houses and trucks and snow machines etc.

I've been only working here for a few weeks now but in and out of a ton of NW Ontario reserves. Talking to some of the other workers that go in and out, a lot (not all) of the communities are just like this. I had a hold in a reserve that is the highest suicide rate in Canada. The "houses" (read; shacks) I saw were a huge eye opener to how they live up there and should not be habitable. There are no treatment centers in a community of 3000, the power regularly goes out yet there is a 65 million dollar school being built. The priorities are whack out there.

Give yourself another year or two, and you'll quickly become jaded dispite still feeling a mordicum of empathy. Your relatively new to flying in remote areas and will eventually "clue in" to what's "right" and what "is wrong" relatively speaking.

I think calling the "race card" is BS, both for the person (C/D was it?) whom first mentioned it and to Rookie (was it?) whom called that poster "racist".

Screw race, coulour or religion. Shit, while I'm at it... Screw the insinuation that because someone decides to live in the middle of no where, he or she should be willing to forgo or take exception to the reasonable expectation that they can expect half decent healthcare and medical services. We aren't talking about a "one off" hermit living in the bush here folks. Barens River is less than half way up Lake Winnipeg for Christ sakes!

At the end of the day, those whom have flown the bush know that nurses can sometimes be opiniated, however I doubt she "roasted the medivac crew" because she wanted to. It's a professional (nurse) cry to the band council, the chief and to the province to improve basic services to a community she/he was doing a rotation in and unfortunately witnessed a loss of life that was thought to be preventable.

All the best,
TPC

[A321]

As a nurse, pilot and someone who has enjoyed the delights of both Berens River and Poplar River…I feel for all professionals providing medical services to these reserve communities. I am not privy to the STARS contract awarded in Manitoba, but it looks like STARS operates both the BK117 and the AW139 in Alberta. I would guess the operating costs of the BK117 are half that of the AW139… however, if the AW139 had been selected for Manitoba, I believe it would have the legs to serve both Berens and Poplar River.

[Meddler]

I have to back up esp and redneck. The most unprofessional thing you can do as a medevac pilot is change how you fly based on the condition of the patient. You should not know, heli medevac Pilots down south are never told now, bc of their terrible safety record back in the day when they did know.

If you really think you should bust mins bc it's a medevac, you should not do medevacs. or any other flying, really. There is always a reason to push.

[Rockie]

To my knowledge there is nothing in the Air Regulations authorizing Medevac pilots to ignore those regulations or aircraft operating limitations absent an actual inflight emergency.

I would be very interested in hearing from an active RCAF SAR pilot on the rules they operate to, and under what conditions they would consider violating those rules to carry out a rescue.

[flyinthebug]

I have to back up esp and redneck. The most unprofessional thing you can do as a medevac pilot is change how you fly based on the condition of the patient. You should not know, heli medevac Pilots down south are never told now, bc of their terrible safety record back in the day when they did know.

If you really think you should bust mins bc it's a medevac, you should not do medevacs. or any other flying, really. There is always a reason to push.

I just quickly read the last 3 pages of this thread, and I cant see where anyone on either side of this issue suggested that breaking Regs was the way to fly Medevac? The only thing close to that was my comment that *I* would have launched *IF* the *ONLY* issue was I was 60' short of runway. That was MY personal comfort level...it may not be anyone elses...and there is a BIG difference between busting mins, and making a decision to not go into a strip that the same aircraft had been into dozens of times before. If the 60' was not an issue for all those missions, why was it suddenly an issue with this particular flight?

I do not know all the particulars about this flight, and I am NOT bashing the Citation crew for their decision oin any level...in fact I believe I stated that I respect their decision. That said, I do have a right to question why 60' of runway was suddenly an issue when it wasnt over the past years of service they have provided to Berens? Busting minimums, and not going because of 60' of runaway, IMO are two completely different beasts. Apples and oranges my friend...as no one suggested they should have busted mins and regs to get in...some of us just questioned why the mission has been flown safely and multiple times to YBV, and suddenly that night, the runway was 60' too short? I think we have a right to ask a reasonable question of the crew, without slamming them for their decision (which again, I fully respect as they had ALL the details and I have very few about that flight, that night).

More than all that, I want to know why Plan B took so long to implement...and I strongly believe someone dropped the ball.

Fly safe all.