HAI president Matt Zuccaro asked his constituents a commonsense question that is at the core of the organization’s new safety program, Land & Live: “We land on mountaintops, buildings, ships, oil platforms....so, why don’t we land the helicopter when an accident chain begins? What is that?”
It turns out that helicopter pilots and their support staff are, in general, programmed to complete missions. “There’s almost a psychological block to landing short of the mission profile, not reaching the original destination,” explained Zuccaro. “But that's got to change,” he continued. “We are trying to remove the pilot’s decision making from what is going on in the back of the helicopter because it should not affect the decisions that the pilot makes regarding the safety of the flight. If the pilot makes the safe aeronautical decision, everyone lives. That’s the real world. Do you want to risk the lives of all on board for the patient? A bad decision can be the beginning of the accident,” he exclaimed.
