By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

(Nov. 1, 2009) --- The National Transportation Safety Board held a conference this past week to announce its findings in the cause of the wreck of Maryland State Police Medevac helicopter Trooper Two on Sept. 27, 2008.

The Board concluded that a number of factors may have contributed to the crash which took four lives; the pilot, the trooper medic, a volunteer medic and an accident victim that was being flown to a trauma center following a wreck in Charles County.

Trooper Two, which was based at Andrews Air Force Base was piloted by Stephen Bunker, who was the single pilot in the Eurocopter.

The NTSB report faulted air traffic controllers at three different towers for failing to provide the support that Bunker needed as he fought deteriorating weather and had to abort his flight just prior to reaching the trauma center at Cheverly in Prince Georges County.

Trooper Two was only a quarter mile from the hospital when the pilot was forced to switch to instrument operation, a function for which he had less than two hours of experience in his 27 years of flying.

Bunker was also awake for 16 hours at the point, and fatigue was cited as a possible factor. With little visibility, fog and rain, Bunker turned to the Potomac Tower for help and one minute passed without an answer and then he was passed off to another tower.

Bunker asked the Andrews Air Force Base tower for guidance on a radar system approach to the runway and was told by the controller that she was not proficient on the system and couldn’t help him. The NTSB didn’t reveal why that controller and others were allowed to be in the tower if they didn’t know how to operate the equipment. That is the same tower which handles Air Force One.

The FAA has responsibility for the air traffic controllers, including the original glaring error of providing a four-hour old weather report to the pilot, who had he had the correct weather report, may never have taken off the ground.

The NTSB also noted that Trooper Two was not one of the three helicopters in Maryland’s fleet of medical transport helicopters to have been equipped with a terrain avoidance system. The system would have given three different warnings to the pilot that he was about to hit the ground.

While the Maryland State Police have been under scrutiny in cutting training time for pilots and failing to have the terrain warning devices, the MSP Medevac helicopters are considered to be the gold standard for the nation and for the world.

Far too many flights have been called for by volunteer firefighters in the past and a system wide review process instituted to avoid flights in bad weather and unnecessary flights has reduced by a significant number of service calls for the helicopters.

The NTSB also said that the duty officer for the State Police failed to note the disappearance of the helicopter for a period of time and that it took nearly two hours for the wreckage to be found.

The wreckage was found in part by State Police troopers using cell phone pings to pin point the crash scene at Watkins Mill Park. The location of the wreck was known almost immediately as the chopper disappeared from radar but still the crash scene wasn’t found for nearly two hours.

The four fatalities wouldn’t have been changed with an earlier discovery but the survivor laid in fuel writhing in pain until found.

The area of the flight, from Andrews, to Wade Elementary School and then to Cheverly, is located in an area of the nation close to DC and heavily impacted by air traffic.

The Maryland State Police have instituted various intensive equipment, training and priority changes all geared to preventing this latest bad weather wreck.

The loss of a helicopter in bad weather early in the aviation history of the state police set in motion many improvements.