Crash report recommends better communications links

An air accident investigation into a crash involving the Athlone-based air ambulance helicopter in Tipperary last year, has recommended better radio links between the HSE emergency staff and Air Corps pilots.
The findings in the 40-page report arise out of a crash on June 19 last, when a helicopter was called to take a patient from a HSE ambulance to a Limerick hospital, but ended up crashing into a power line near Borrisoleigh, Co Tipperary.
The investigators found that the weather en-route from its base at Custume Barracks Athlone, Westmeath to the intended pick up point was good.
However on approach to landing in a field, the helicopter’s main rotor blades struck ESB 220kV overhead wires and severed them. The pilot was forced into an emergency landing and all crew later left the helicopter uninjured.
Air Accident Investigation Unit chief Thomas Moloney recommended that paramedics on the ground should be given the means to contact directly the helicopter pilot.
The report also called on the HSE to provide an “aviation awareness module” for emergency crews on the ground to help them inform pilots of local landing conditions.