Inexperience proves fatal

[Jon]

Inexperience proves fatal in the South Dakota darkness

By Alan Levin, USA TODAY

Air ambulance pilot Masaaki Suzuki almost flew into a radio tower during his first week on the job, federal records show.
Flying at night over the South Dakota prairie, he became disoriented and sometimes sent the helicopter into a dive, pilots who accompanied him said. And the 39-year-old Japanese immigrant had trouble communicating on the radio because he couldn't speak English well.

But that didn't stop Omniflight, one of the nation's largest air ambulance companies, from putting Suzuki at the controls of night rescue flights.

Despite his problems, Suzuki met federal flight qualifications. And the company's facility in Aberdeen, S.D., had a shortage of pilots. Over the objections of Omniflight's local safety chief, a top company official rescinded an order that barred Suzuki from flying at night, federal records show.

Rest HERE (USA Today, Free, No Sign-up): Clicky

 

[Jon]

Nice....


Great to know that we have competant pilots landing 50 yards from my ambulance......



I still remember the old Eastern German pilot who just retired from a local service, 6 months after they retired their BO-105.... This guy was a test pilot in the BO-105 "back in the day" and probably had more time logged in that model than any other local pilot had logged total..... great guy, if he couldn't do it, noone could....

In the last year he enjoyed tormenting the consturction crew working on the ED addition... strafing and trying to tip the porta-potty

Jon

 

[TTLWHKR]

I remember about ten years ago, we were landing a chopper on a highway for an MVC. The guy was told exactly where to sit down, it was night, the road had flares all over the place, he sat down like 200' away, behind the fire apparatus. Where we planned on him sitting down was free of trees, lines, etc. Well, we are sitting there the chopper idles down. They arrive w/ the ambulance; patient is in trauma arrest. The decide not to fly them, flight surgeon detects cardiac tamponade, they call the guy. We're all standing there talking, the chopper is still running low w/ the blades spinning. Somehow in the process of powering back up they sucked telephone lines into the tail rudder. It never got off the ground, but we never found the tail rudder. The fire chief went running up yelling at the pilot, "WTF is wrong with you, what do you think the flares are for, etc... The medic was watching from the ambulance, said "new guy".

 

[MMiz]

I read the entire article and it's scary. Despite people calling his skills "pathetic" and revoking his rights to fly, he was still allowed to fill in. The company just messed up.

They seem to be a private company that supplements hospital services. From what I gather they provide the pilot and plane / copter, and the hospital would provide the flight medic. Someone sure messed up on this one, and it seems as though even the people he worked with are pissed about the company allowing the new inexperienced pilot to fly.

 

[Jon]

Originally posted by MMiz@Jul 21 2005, 11:32 PM
I read the entire article and it's scary. Despite people calling his skills "pathetic" and revoking his rights to fly, he was still allowed to fill in. The company just messed up.

They seem to be a private company that supplements hospital services. From what I gather they provide the pilot and plane / copter, and the hospital would provide the flight medic. Someone sure messed up on this one, and it seems as though even the people he worked with are pissed about the company allowing the new inexperienced pilot to fly.

Many of the companies do this - provide the bird and the pilot and have the hospital provide the care staff....

Also, Alex... it is possible that the pilot saw something about your LZ he didn't like.... but more likely he was a bleeping moron....

Jon