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Medical Helicopter Crash Unlikely Here, Officials Say

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 2, 2008

Updated: 07/02/2008 07:31 pm

TAMPA - The volume of helicopter traffic in Tampa Bay would help prevent a collision like one in Arizona this week that claimed the lives of six people, said the man who oversees flights at Tampa General Hospital.

"We have lots of helicopters that land here," said John Scott, who manages the Aeromed program at Tampa General. "We have all kinds of sophisticated systems in place here."

There is Tampa International Airport, which has a handle on every aircraft in the area, plus a mini control tower at Tampa General that coordinates flights in and out of the hospital's landing zone.
Communications frequencies are well-known among approaching pilots, Scott said. Redundancies in protocol mean a safer sky over the large hospital on Davis Islands, he said.

The scene of the Arizona accident, near Flagstaff, doesn't have Tampa's volume of helicopters from news crews, law enforcement, medical centers and private pilots.

"I can say that I feel very comfortable with what we've got here, which are a lot of systems in place," Scott said. "We're vested in safety."

Tampa General has three helicopters of its own. One is stationed at the hospital, the others in Sebring and Inverness. He couldn't say how many times a helicopter lands at Tampa General.

"Some days, it's all day long," he said. "Some days it doesn't even happen."

On Sunday near Flagstaff, a helicopter taking a patient with a medical emergency from the Grand Canyon collided into another medical helicopter carrying a patient near a northern Arizona hospital. The crash killed six people and critically injured a nurse.

The collision near Flagstaff Medical Center barely missed a neighborhood.

An explosion on one of the helicopters after the crash injured two emergency workers who arrived with a ground ambulance company. They received minor burns and were taken to a hospital.

A medical helicopter did crash in the Bay area eight years ago, killing the pilot and two crew members aboard. The aircraft was not transporting patients at the time. The crash occurred near Weedon Island in Pinellas County.

A federal investigation concluded that the Bayflite helicopter was flying too low and blamed the crash on the pilot.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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