flight positions

[UtErRnEmt]

I'm curious. Where do you search for flight nurse positions? There are 3 services in my area but none are hiring for RN's at this time. Is there a web site with positions advertised? I have almost all the certifications i've been told I would need. Now I need a job. Thanks

[58flyer]

I wasn't going to add any more to this thread but I came across some new data. I just received the current edition of Air Beat magazine, the official journal of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association (ALEA). A number of police agencies also have an EMS operation along with their Law Enforcement function. Among these are Maryland State Police, Nassau County (NY) Police, San Bernardino County (CA) Sheriff's Department, U.S. Park Police, Broward County (FL) Sheriff, Volusia County (FL) Sheriff, just to name a few of the 34 agencies that are a part of A.L.E.A.

Anyway, there is an article called MEDEVACS ARE NOT ROUTINE in the current issue. The article mentioned the NTSB report stated in earlier posts. It added " the issues that most concerned the NTSB - nighttime flights, adverse weather conditions, inhospitable terrain, flight crew fatigue, pressures to attempt missions despite adverse conditions, the absence of aviation-knowledgeable flight dispatchers, and the lack of flight following." The FAA has published Advisory Circular 135-14A "Emergency Medical Services/Helicopter (EMS/H)," "and other FAA notices that provide temporary guidance to aviation safety inspectors, but said that further action was justified."

Getting into specific data......." The John Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a study of EMS accidents between Jan 1, 1983 and April 30, 2005 from data taken from the NTSB's accident database. The study reported that there were 182 helicopter accidents during the 22 year study period, an average of 8.1 per year. From 1998 through April 2005, there were 88 helicopter EMS accidents, an average of 12 per year, compared to 8.6 per year from 1983 to 1989 and 4.3 from 1990 through 1997. Seventy-one (71) crashes (39 percent) were fatal. 184 occupants died, a rate of 1011 per 1000 accidents, or one fatality per accident. 20 of 44 patients (45 percent) and 164 of 513 crew members (32 percent) died."

Further... "The contribution of darkness and bad weather that affects EMS flights and Law Enforcement flights is well documented. The John Hopkins study noted that when a helicopter accident occurs, darkness more than triples the risk of fatalities, and adverse weather increases the risk eight-fold. Both threats underscore the importance of clear standards, good risk management, and decision-making when determining the necessity for such flights."

What I found especially interesting was "While there was no comprehensive empirical data that NVG technology reduces EMS accidents, there have been no reports of EMS accidents due to controlled flight into terrain while using night vision goggles."

I know that such numbers may not mean much to some folks. Realistically, some folks beat the odds while others don't. If something happens to you personally, then your chances of that something happening are 100 percent, regardless of what the statistics say. In my experience, I had an hydraulic failure (helo) occur at 980 hours (my flight time), and an engine failure (helo) occur at around 6000 hours. In talking to the Bell Helicopter Textron safety people, I was told that most pilots go through an entire career with neither failure, based on statistics. My catastrophic engine failure was one in a milllon. I remember when I took my commercial helicopter checkride, the examiner asked a number of questions that were designed to test my judgement. I thought my answers were sound, but the examiner simply smiled and said "wait 'till you get a few thousand hours behind you and had a few helicopters break on you, and you will have a different answer." Up to that point I had every flight go perfectly. Now having had an engine failure, hydraulic failure, sensor failure, and a few chip lights, I now look at those strange machines a little differently. They are as dangerous as hell. Let no one tell you otherwise.

No one questions the safety record of flight in commercial airliners. It is statistically the safest way to travel. Yet my very first flight as a passenger in a commercial airliner ended in an horrendous crash. Lots of fatalities. Again, statistically, that should not have happened. But it did, at least I was among the survivors. It illustrates my point that regardless of what statistics say, when it's your time, it's your time.......

Relating to flight nursing, it doesn't matter if you are the pilot, or some other member of the crew, you are all aboard the same helicopter, and the dangers are the same for all.

[skysix]

re: 21,000 flight crew, I know of an active FW CFN who has been flying since 4/1978, in 12/1995 when I met her she had just under 14,000 hours, so I expect she is over 23,000 by now.

21,000 over a 28.666 year career is only 61 hours a month which if you are working a 21 of 35 day schedule is only about 3.5 hours a day and I KNOW she averages over 4 hours a day...

I have only been flying for just over 6 years and already have 2850 hours, so I expect by the time I quit flying and retire I will have about 12,000 or so but then my schedule is a lot easier!!

[skysix]

OOPS - not done and accidntally posted.

So I am currently averaging about 475 hours a year which means that I would have to fly 44.2 years. As it happens, I plan to retire at about 25.25 years so I guess I should only have a 22% chance??? I am not sure you can manipulate the numbers that easily...

[Shamira Aizza]

Those are fixed wing numbers and have nothing to do with the research that was published by Ms. Baker.

It's not even reasonably possible that someone would accrue 9,000 hours of rotor wing flight time over 11 years.

[CraigB-RN, MSN, RN]

Actually you can get that many hours, but it's real hard. It took a combination of military and civilian at the same time to get that many hours. But then I was young and stupid in those days.

[Shamira Aizza]

11 years worth of young and stupid?

Full-time rotor pilots won't even accrue that much time in 11 years.

[CraigB-RN, MSN, RN]

After going back and checking my logs I ahve to admit I did screw up my math. That was a combination of fixed and rotor. That includes a couple of years of going the AFairevac route going the trans atlantic and pacific rim flights.

As to the young and stupid part of my comment. It was basicly not having a life for years and working 2.5 full times jobs. Going from one service to the other with no break. What I can't figure out is were I had time to sleep. During that time I was crew on 3 autorotations, I won't stay weither civilian or military, and two landing gear malfunction that prompted belly landings. I'm not counting the C-141 that clipped another aircraft on the taxi way. 1979 wasn't a very good year for me.

[teiladay]

Yawn.

All that to make an inaccurate generalization that flying is dangerous business.

It's simply not true based on anything you've said. If you do anything long enough, including inherently safe activities, you can encounter a dangerous situation. The fact that you might encounter something dangerous if you do it long enough does not make it a "dangerous business." It makes it an occupation or pasttime where something dangerous can happen. You can experience this anywhere, including manufacturing and clerking a convenience store. You clerk a store long enough, you are going to get robbed. It doesn't make clerking a convenience store inherently "dangerous."

Here's what's dangerous; swatting a hungry bear with a short stick. Running across a mine field. Forgetting to pay your date before dropping her off at Ponce De Leon. Those are dangerous...all likely resulting in bad outcomes.

Flying rarely results in a bad outcome, including EMS flying.

I wasn't going to even address the rest of your post because it's not really relevant, but I thought I'd point out that the majority of EMS crashes are pilot error (usually weather), and the reason helicopter insurance is higher is because a 1997 Honda costs $3500 to replace and a 1997 EC135 costs about $3-4 million.

Board: Lives lost 'needlessly' in medical helicopter crashes

September 30, 2008

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Accident rate for medevac flights in darkness or bad weather is too high, NTSB says

Report: Almost half of EMS helicopter accidents occurred during nighttime hours

Parents mourn David Bacon Jr., killed in a foggy 2004 crash in South Carolina

Shortage of night-vision goggles for helicopter pilots may be adding to problem

(CNN) -- Investigators are again on the scene of a fatal medical helicopter crash. Four people were killed Saturday night in suburban Washington when the chopper operated by the Maryland State Police went down in a park.

Four people were killed Saturday night in Maryland when an emergency medical helicopter crashed in a park.

1 of 2

The emergency medical-services helicopter had picked up two automobile accident victims and was attempting to land when air-traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot. Authorities said the pilot had twice radioed for help in foggy weather.

Nationally, it was the eighth fatal medical helicopter crash in the past 12 months.

Pilots, flight nurses and paramedics who fly emergency medical operations often must navigate rough terrain, darkness and bad weather. But the National Transportation Safety Board says the accident rate for such flights is far too high.

"The Safety Board is very concerned with the increasing number of these EMS helicopter accidents," said Robert Sumwalt, the NTSB's vice chairman. "We have had too many of them. The number is increasing. We need to do something about it. We need to do something about it right now."

It's a problem that David Bacon of Simpsonville, South Carolina, and his wife, Barbara, know only too well.

Their son, David Bacon Jr., was killed along with three others on an EMS helicopter July 13, 2004, in Newberry, South Carolina. Their aircraft hit some trees in fog about 5:30 a.m. after picking up a patient from an accident site on an interstate.

The senior Bacon, a volunteer firefighter when David Jr. was a boy, remembers exactly when his son decided he wanted to be a paramedic.

"Another volunteer firefighter worked as a flight paramedic. I took him down there one day when he was working, and [my son] got a tour of the helicopter. He was 13 years old, and I have the picture, him standing by the helicopter. And that's when he decided that's what he wanted to do," Bacon said. "That flight paramedic was also one of his pallbearers."

Don't Miss

Helicopter crash in Maryland

Bacon's crash was one of 55 EMS aircraft accidents investigated by the NTSB between January 2002 and January 2005. Those accidents resulted in 54 fatalities and 18 serious injuries.

In a 2006 report on the crashes, the NTSB found that 29 of those 55 accidents could have been prevented.

The NTSB identified four recurring safety issues:

• Less stringent requirements for EMS operations conducted without patients on board.

• A lack of aviation flight-risk evaluation programs for EMS operations.

• A lack of consistent, comprehensive flight-dispatch procedures for EMS operations.

• No requirements to use technologies such as terrain awareness and warning systems to enhance EMS flight safety.

The NTSB report showed that although 38 percent of all helicopter EMS flights occur at night, 49 percent of accidents during a 20-year period occurred during the night.

"We are an independent federal agency, charged by Congress to investigate transportation accidents, to determine the probable cause, and then to issue safety recommendations. And when those recommendations are not implemented, lives are lost, needlessly," Sumwalt said.

Although the NTSB offers recommendations, it is the Federal Aviation Administration that has the power to make regulations mandatory.

"We understand the NTSB safety recommendations, and we agree with all of them," said Jim Ballough, director of the FAA's flight standards service. "We also understand that rulemaking takes a long time," he said.

The details of the federal rulemaking process provide little comfort to Bacon's parents.

"It is now four years [since the crash], and I have seen no response to any of the recommendations made by the NTSB," Bacon said. "Why the FAA either doesn't want to deal with it, doesn't want to take action, doesn't have funds allocated to do this, I don't know what their problem is."

One technology that veteran EMS pilots say could improve their safety is the use of night-vision goggles. Developed for use in the military, the goggles can improve visibility for pilots flying in darkness. The NTSB has encouraged night-vision goggle use since 2006. It costs about $60,000 to train two pilots and retrofit an aircraft cockpit with night-vision technology.

But because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a shortage of the goggles. In the United States, the military gets first access to the goggles, and only a couple of companies manufacture the complex, and classified, equipment.

Fewer than a third of about 800 EMS helicopters in the United States have night-vision technology. A lot more would like it, according to a survey of 382 active helicopter EMS pilots by the National EMS Pilots Association.

The survey, published in May, found that 82 percent of pilots prefer to use night-vision equipment. Among their comments:

"I feel night-vision goggles have improved the safety in our program more than any other thing I have seen in 17 years of EMS flying."

"Landing in unimproved areas at night without NVGs is idiotic!"

"The FAA many times seems to hinder rather than enhance safety with some of their rules made by out-of-touch desk jockeys."

"I left my last job because they didn't have a NVG program."

Mike Atwood, owner of Aviation Specialties Unlimited in Boise, Idaho, is the distributor of night-vision systems for ITT Technologies, the largest U.S. manufacturer. His company provides training for pilots in the use of night-vision goggles and modifies cockpits for their proper operation.

He said the waiting time for civilian uses of the goggles, mostly emergency medical services and law enforcement, is about six to eight months.

"The [iTT] plant is maxed out. They are operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," Atwood said. "It would be very difficult to make any more than they are making right now."

Atwood said night-vision technology has improved dramatically since it was introduced in World War II. He first used the goggles in the military in 1978.

"I thought, this is the greatest thing in the world. Even though they were a full-faced goggle then, you could go into dark areas and be able to see," he said.

The equipment Aviation Specialties sells is a third generation of the technology. It works through "image intensification," amplifying a small amount of light from the moon or stars to produce a green image.

As CNN correspondent and pilot Miles O'Brien learned when he flew with Aviation Specialties pilot Justin Watlington, there is no doubt that the equipment makes night flying safer. So when might the FAA adopt the NTSB's safety recommendations? Watch O'Brien's report on proposed changes »

"I can't give you a timeframe at this point. We continue to strive to enable the technology to be implemented by these [EMS aircraft] operators, and we will certainly look to codify that in the future," said the FAA's Ballough.

Meanwhile, 52 people have died in EMS flight accidents since the NTSB made its recommendations in 2006. Nearly two-thirds of those fatalities, including Saturday's crash in Maryland, involved nighttime or poor-visibility flights.

[awpanda_99]

I am looking for flight RN/paramedic positions in Boston, MA. Any suggestions on companies??

Thanks!