Change is coming to the helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) industry, and once the dust settles there could be fewer providers flying fewer helicopters in a more costly and highly regulated environment.
Late last month top aviation insurance executives met in Dallas to discuss possible stricter underwriting requirements for the rapidly growing medical helicopter industry against the backdrop of seven fatal helicopter EMS crashes so far this year that have killed 28. The recent safety record for helicopter EMS operators has attracted media attention, drawn congressional criticism, precipitated an FAA change in the operating specifications regarding Part 135 and helicopter EMS flights and sparked NTSB demands for more equipment and better training and procedures. The NTSB issued its most recent critical report on, and safety recommendations for, the industry in 2006 and continues to rate the FAA response to most of those recommendations as “open, unacceptable.”
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