Lawyers With the Experience You Will Need After an EMS Helicopter Crash
Recent studies by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have shown a marked increase in accidents involving Emergency Medical Service (EMS) helicopters. As a resource, EMS helicopters are intended to save lives by getting seriously injured or sick people to the hospital as soon as possible. The irony is that your chances of getting safely to the hospital by helicopter are lower than they are with any other form of flight.
Many air ambulance and EMS helicopter accidents are weather related. Increasingly, we see accidents that have been caused, at least in part, by pilots with a "cowboy" mentality. Some accidents are inexplicable, with experienced pilots flying into known obstacles, wires being a most common form of hazard. Fatigue can also play a big part. So can mechanical failures or aircraft design defects.
O'Reilly Collins recently settled one tragic accident involving an EMS helicopter that crashed near Las Vegas, for $13,000,000. Examination of the wreckage at the crash site showed that parts of the main rotor blades were far away from the impact zone, as much as a thousand feet. The inevitable conclusion: the recently repaired blade had been unable to withstand flight loads and had torn itself apart.
About the same time, a similar accident in the San Joaquin Valley resulted in the death of a ferry pilot. Again, a blade failed but it was difficult to determine how the intricate surface had disintegrated. Everything in the maintenance records seemed by-the-book and the NTSB was baffled.
However, under careful cross-examination a repair technician admitted that since the manual called for heat to be applied to the surface during repair, he figured he could pick up a blow-torch and do the job quicker. And he could. Unfortunately he finished both the job and a pilot's life. That case settled for $4,000,000.
O'Reilly Collins has successfully resolved 20 EMS helicopter accidents for families, to date. To learn more, contact us online or call our attorneys toll-free in the San Francisco area, or from anywhere in the United States at 888-696-5371.
