Fresh pressure is being placed on the FAA to revise and finalize its 2010 notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would mandate the installation of helicopter terrain avoidance and warning systems (HTAWS) and radar altimeters on all U.S. emergency medical service (EMS) helicopters. The NPRM drew a firestorm of criticism from affected stakeholders for favoring high-cost solutions over less expensive, and some argued, more effective safety technology such as night-vision goggles (NVGs). Also criticized was what some see as the FAA’s slow approval process for related supplemental type certificates and field approvals. Nevertheless, over the last decade, the helicopter EMS (HEMS) industry and the FAA have been working together on a variety of voluntary and collaborative initiatives to improve HEMS safety, and there is some evidence that this approach is working as the number of HEMS accidents per 100,000 flight hours continues to decline in the U.S., even as the industry has rapidly grown from a handful of EMS helicopters in the early 1980s to nearly 1,000 today.
