From Chris Millard, CEO of Survival Flight-
Thanksgiving message:
Good evening, as many of you are preparing for what I hope will be a wonderful holiday spent with family and friends, I wanted to take the occasion to wish you all the best for Thanksgiving and to share some thoughts.
Many of you will be on duty during the holiday doing what you do best, moving with purpose and saving lives. Having that said, I know there are thousands of people out there in the communities that we serve that are reflecting this holiday on how thankful they are that all of you were there in their darkest hour when they needed you the most.
They are thankful for world class medical care that was delivered with purpose and safety; enabled by skilled maintenance, caring administration, insightful marketers, and many other team members that make up our family. In essence, our family at Survival Flight is here this thanksgiving so that our patients can be with theirs.
Looking back on this year, I am proud of the progress that we have made in our markets and the success of the new bases. Although, this year hasn’t been the easiest as it started off with having to say goodbye to three of our own in Ohio. Please join me in remembering the fallen and keeping their families in our thoughts and prayers through this season.
Recently, there has been information that you may have read from the NTSB regarding our loss earlier this year. I think it is important to highlight a few facts concerning this information. Much of the negative information that makes up the Group Chairman’s Factual Report of Operational Factors/Human Performance, is largely opinion that was collected from former employees who, for one reason or another, were disgruntled when they left. To show the points that the NSTB were trying to make, they largely used the comments of those who have left us to insert their own agenda and to try and hurt us.
The fact is, they do not know what brought down our aircraft last January and the final report is not expected till early spring, but I will tell you that we have received information recently that is pointing to a completely different cause that has not been considered yet. Although I can’t discuss the specifics, I will tell you that the NTSB is reviewing information collected from the aircraft recording system and I am confident that once they get a closer look at this information, the cause of the crash will be nothing related to weather or anything else that they have speculated on to date, and all of this noise that is out there regarding our operations will all be proven to be untrue and unrelated to the cause. As information becomes available that we can share we will do so immediately. I am hoping to be able to share some things as soon as today.
As a matter of normal practice after a loss like this, the regulatory agency that governs how we do business, the FAA, has done extensive post-accident inspection into every facet of our company to include, the OCC, pilot training, policies, management, and many base inspections, the only thing they have asked us to change is a few formatting items on our Risk Assessment. Those changes were made as requested and we will continue to follow the FAA’s directive and advice which is to make no other changes and continue to operate as we are.
So where do we go from here? I’ll tell you - Please know that we are going to continue to try and take every flight we can knowing that we cannot take them all. We are going to continue to tell our customers what we can do rather than what we can’t do. We are going to continue to take an honest look at every flight request that comes in regardless of what competing company turned it down. We are going to continue to leverage the expertise in our OCC to help pilots make informed decisions. We are going to continue to strive everyday to get off the ground as quickly and safely as possible. We are going to continue to synchronize maintenance so as to minimize our OOS time. We are going to continue to do these things because that is who we are and that is what makes us different and that difference is seen every day in the lives of the patients that we fly.
In closing, it is my hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Thank you for all that you do and a special thank you to those who are on duty during the holiday. I ask that you tune out the noise that is generated by opinion, conjecture, and false narratives and know that we as a company are stronger than we have ever been and that I have full confidence in our people, our equipment, and our processes.
