Md. Emergency Helicopter Fleet Had Sterling Record

The decision had been made safely many times before: Victims in a car crash were critically injured, and a helicopter was dispatched to rush them to the hospital.

Officials work at a command post near the sight of a helicopter crash on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008 in...

Officials work at a command post near the sight of a helicopter crash on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008 in Forestville, Md. A medevac helicopter taking accident victims to a trauma center crashed in suburban Washington early Sunday, killing four of the five people aboard, authorities said. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

(AP)

But before the emergency team ever got the patients to waiting doctors, the pilot struggled in the darkness and fog. Soon, he radioed that conditions were difficult, and said he would land elsewhere. The radio eventually went silent — and the helicopter was discovered in a crumpled heap on a woodsy hillside, with four of its five occupants dead.

The weekend's crash at a park in suburban Washington, D.C., was the eighth fatal crash in the past 12 months across the country involving medical transport helicopters. Observers say the accident demonstrates a disturbing rise in the number of emergency air transport crashes, and wonder if a system designed to save lives may be costing them.

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Aviation authorities also are signaling that it may be time to discuss regulatory changes, and planning a public hearing to analyze what's causing the increase in crashes. They also could discuss how decisions are made when officials choose to transport patients by air or by ground.

Dr. Bryan Bledsoe, an emergency medicine physician who teaches at the University of Nevada and has researched accident rates of medical helicopters, said the Maryland medevac system has a good safety record, but medical flights are sometimes too favored over old-fashioned ambulances.

"We vastly overuse them, patients don't benefit and they are expensive," he said.

Maryland emergency officials haven't described in detail what influenced their decision to launch a helicopter before Saturday's crash, saying only they were following state emergency procedures and that they considered the severity of the victims' injuries. They also have said when the helicopter initially took off, there was seven miles of visibility. By the time of the crash, however, conditions had deteriorated to the point that the pilot had to rely on instruments to help him land.