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Sat Oct 11 20:58:48 BST 2008

Stephen, Ken,
> I agree that if a national consensus meeting is to be held we certainly
> should invite leaders from other nations who have exemplary helicopter
> programs with outstanding safety records to add their insight to the
> discussion.  Australia, Germany, Austria, the UK, and some of the
> Scandinavian countries (Norway in particular is reputed to have a good
> safety record despite having some of the most miserable winter weather on
> the planet) would be on my short list.
I have been silent on this topic, because it comes up on this list quite
regular. What I am going to write now is what I have said several times
before. I have been working as a flight physician for about 5 years and
I am trying to install a helicopter service in my region (well, at least
in the long run...).

How does the system work here in Germany?

1.  aeromediocal service is accepted as complimentary to other services
in the pre-/ interhospital emergency system.

2. in order to regulate uncontrolled growth, the governments of the
German states have agreed to control the number *and* location of
aeromedical services. General aim is to cover the country with a net of
helicopters, usually with a radius of roughly 50 kms around each base.
This is due to the average airspeed of the BO 105, which has been the
standard chopper those days and which allowed a proper timeframe to
reach any scene. Usually helicopter services do respond to out hospital
emergencies and do interhospital transfers only occasionally, others are
of dual use or are designed mainly for interhospital transfers. The
pressure is high for the later to do nightly dispatches as well.

3. Providers are invited to compete for a helicopter station. Once they
are approved to run a station, they usually do so for a long time.

4. Most providers do agree that nightly dispatches are dangerous and
should *not* been done in on a routine base. However, some providers do
challenge this rule.

5. Any incident is strictly followed by the Luftfahrtbundesamt, the
German Civil Aviation Authority.

6. Most (deadly) accidents are due to alcohol and/or negligence  and
happen far to often during questionable flights during the night / poor
weather conditions.

7. The physician on call decides if, when, where to and under which
conditions a patient will be transported.

8. Whether the chopper takes off or not solely depends on the pilot. Period.

Cheers!

Mathias

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