happened with weather considered "legal" when the crew took off, but to understand what is legal we first need a short class on legal weather. Reported visibility is straight forward; it is what it is. But a ceiling is defined in the Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) as "the heights above the earth's sur face of the lowest layer of clouds or obscuring phenomena that is reported as "broken", "overcast," or "obscura tion," and not classified as "thin" or "partial."
http://www.faa.gov/air_traf; fic/publications/atpubs/PCG/
C.HTM Any cloud layer reported as few or scat tered is not considered a ceiling. Reviewing one of the many HEMS
night unaided weather related acci dents, the weather report at the time of the accident was winds 290º at 5 knots, 5 miles visibility, few clouds at 500 feet, overcast at 5500 feet, tem perature +21, dew point + 20. This was "legal" weather for the flight, with the few clouds at 500 feet not even fac toring into the weather equation since few clouds do not constitute a ceiling, but still they crashed with legal weather. So can we change the weather minimums to something rea sonable that could help reduce the weather related fatal crashes in the HEMS community? To help reduce the weather related
fatal HEMS crashes I propose changing the current FAR Part 135 in route weath er requirements by adding: Night crosscountry operations without Night Vision Imaging Systems require visibility of not less than 5 miles with no cloud or obscuring phenomena layers below
rotorcraftpro.com 37
2000 feet. This simple and straight forward
2000/5 is an easy solution that could help protect our unaided HEMS crews, and this more restrictive weather mini mum would only be a real factor when there is a high probability of fog. Since 16 of the 22 fatal HEMS accidents or 73% of those fatal incidents weather was a contributing factor, and there was a high probability of fog or low clouds in the area. The amount of HEMS accidents our
industry has seen can not continue. Many times when looking for ways to prevent accidents we find complex and time consuming solutions. But if we bring all interested parties to the table, and look at the root cause of most acci dents we can normally find a simple solution to rectify the problem. So Pilots', Operators', Professional Organizations', the FAA and the NTSB need to come together to find solution before more HEMS professional are lost.
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