GAAn Australian charity’s medical transport flights have a fatal accident rate seven times higher than other flights by Australian private pilots, partly because of self-imposed pressure by the pilots to complete the assignments, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says.
The ATSB likened the pressures facing pilots of these flights — classified as community service flights — to the pressures facing pilots in emergency medical services operations, including the pilots’ determination, even in conditions that were not conducive to flight, to deliver an ailing patient to the destination for treatment.
The ATSB’s analysis of charitable flights — and in particular, those of Angel Flight Australia — was conducted after the June 26, 2017, crash of an Angel Flight Socata TB-10 Tobago carrying a patient and one of the patient’s relatives to a medical appointment. The TB-10 struck the ground barely one minute after it took off into low clouds from Mount Gambier A…
