Army Air Medics: The Most Dangerous Job In The World

F

Firebird2XC

Well-Known Member
In this month's Maxim (June 2010).

Army Air Medics: The Most Dangerous Job in the World.

GREAT article about Army Blackhawk Air Ambulance Companies in Afghanistan


HOOAH! :rawk:
 
Murdoughnut said:
No disrespect to the Army whatsoever - it just seems like flying private medivac in the states is a death wish these days.
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Except for the minor fact that there usually aren't people SHOOTING at you when you're picking someone up from a traffic accident....

:dunno:
 
rd757 said:
Except for the minor fact that there usually aren't people SHOOTING at you when you're picking someone up from a traffic accident....

:dunno:
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I think the point being made is, when your medivac crashes it dosen't matter whether you get shot at or shot down. Dead is dead, and that seems to happen to lots of medevac crews in the states.
 
Oh, I thought the point being made was "Army Air Medics: The Most Dangerous Job In The World"

There truly is no camparison between civilian Air Ambulance and Military MedEvac. Unless we can think that an F-16 shot down in Iraq is the same as a 172 crashing in the downwind.

I guess the flatline looks the same, but other than that........
 
dustoff17 said:
Oh, I thought the point being made was "Army Air Medics: The Most Dangerous Job In The World"

There truly is no camparison between civilian Air Ambulance and Military MedEvac. Unless we can think that an F-16 shot down in Iraq is the same as a 172 crashing in the downwind.

I guess the flatline looks the same, but other than that........
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I was referancing the point Murdoughnut was making.
 
Well, let's look at that then. How about a comparison in the "deaths"? Two years ago (when Congress was knee-jerking so bad you would think it was the River Dance) there were 9 EMS crashes in the Civilian market. 14 people killed.

Now, I'm not related to any of them so don't think I'm heartless but...14? Come on! There were over 125 killed in crashes that involved aircraft manufactured by one company alone in the same time period!

During that year, the first TAWS equipped aircraft had a CFIT; pilot shut it off because it was "annoying".

A fully instrument trained pilot crashed into the trees while scud running in a fully instrumented aircraft. AFTER taking the mission because another crew turned it down because of weather. The pilot said on the radio something to the effect, [they wouldn't take it? Well then we sure as hell will]

AND, my personal favorite, a pilot was scud-running going on a call that had already been turned down by another pilot. He HIT a BALE of HAY!!

Bottom line; You can't fix stupid!!

You don't see this mentality in the military MedEvac world. I'm partial to the Army but haven't heard of blatant stupidity across the military spectrum like you do in civilian Air Ambulance operations.
 
Murdoughnut said:
No disrespect to the Army whatsoever - it just seems like flying private medivac in the states is a death wish these days.
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I don't think he really meant to say that civilian medevac was truly more hazardous than military, he was just referring to the seemingly high incidence of accidents recently. It seems every time you turn around, there's another medevac crash on the news. :(
 
I agree that HEMS is a risky business. IMHO, CSAR/Dustoff ops are more dangerous for more reasons. HEMS, for the most part is flying into a mixture of urban and rural areas SINGLE PILOT in all varieties of weather. Unless you were operating in LA, they probably aren't getting shot at. Many HEMS pilots are former military. So, what's the difference? The operations, the equipment, the crew composition/dynamics -- all complicate the situation. Flying around BFE in a temped-out 206L single pilot in deteriorating wx is a bad situation, but the H60 Dustoff crew has a different threat to deal with when they are landing in a hot LZ.

Apples and oranges.
 
High_Alpha said:
I don't think he really meant to say that civilian medevac was truly more hazardous than military, he was just referring to the seemingly high incidence of accidents recently. It seems every time you turn around, there's another medevac crash on the news. :(
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That's the point I was trying to make. There really haven't been that many accidents even compared to other operations. Only nine considering the literally tens of thousands of hours and countless numbers of people saved/helped. It's just something that the media has grabbed on to. It seems to be big news only because the nation's media is looking for it.

If they put it on the front page every time a single engine plane crashed, Congress would make multi-engines mandatory!

As we used to say. "If you're not Dustoff, you can just ......." Well, you get it!
 
High_Alpha said:
I don't think he really meant to say that civilian medevac was truly more hazardous than military, he was just referring to the seemingly high incidence of accidents recently. It seems every time you turn around, there's another medevac crash on the news. :(
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Yes, that. Sorry, I wasn't trying to make this into a thing - just pointing out that it seems like you hear more about private medevac accidents.
 
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