HEMS Data Reporting Requirement AMOA Response to the Current FAA Proposal

6/2 8 /13

Air medical operators have long support ed the establishment of an FAA operational data collection requirement . Enhanced collection and reporting of accurate, timely dat a can further improve the safety of air medical operations. H owever, we believe the process by which that operational data is collected and stored must meet the following conditions:

• The data must be useful to both the FAA and to the industry to support o ur mutual efforts to improve aviation safety; it should therefore be collected and reported in a manner that allows for meaningful study and analysis of the industry

.

• The collection and the reporting of the data should be as m inimally burdensome as possib le ; and

• The FAA must protect, as required by the law, any proprietary information contained in the reported data

.

Background

Congress enacted the HEMS data collection requirement in Section 306 of the “FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012”, codified a t 49 USC § 44731 ( “the Act”)

. Given the expected safety benefits to come from appropriate collection and analysis of the HEMS data and the need for it to be useful to both the

HEMS industry and the government

, the FAA should implement the data collection r eporting requirement through a general rulemaking process that allows the opportunity for public comment from the industry and other important stakeholders to assure that c ongressional intent is carried out

. We believe the law can be implemented without i mposing an extraordinary economic burden provided its data elements are applied consistent with the operational realities of the air medical sector and its terms are clearly defined.

We have been advised the FAA has chosen instead a process that will limi t the ability of the agency to gain the feedback of the public and to best achieve congressional intent

.

W e believe the current FAA proposal fails to address both the in dustry’s goals and the intent of the legislation in the following ways:

1. The terms used are undefined and subject to inconsistent implementation and enforcement;

2. The correlation of the various data points is inconsistent with the law and creates a much

gre ater economic burden on operators than is required by the law; and

3. It undermines the safety value of the law by failing to require reporting of the data necessary to determine the total number of air medical flights and flight hours that will help governme nt and industry evaluate the accident rate for air medical operations.

The attached table compares the FAA’s proposal to the specific requirements of the Act, it identifies our specific concerns with the FAA’s proposed approach and our recommended method of data collection.

We note here that t he FAA’s proposal does not define key terms such as “ flight request

, ” “flight

, ” and “dispatch”

. If “flight ” is defined to mean

- as it is current ly defined i n the Federal Aviation Regulations

-

as originating with a takeoff and ending with the landing, then the flight “requested” according to the logic of the definition would only record the leg of the flight transporting the patient

. However, a typical helicopter air ambulance operation, usually involves two or thr ee legs with associated take offs and landings.

Collecting the data in this manner, and correlating it in the way the FAA proposes, results in a flight hours total that only reflect s flights conducted with a patient on board and does not include the total number of

hours operated by the aircraft. We cannot derive an accident rate, analyze safety trends, or determine risk factors in all phases of an air medical flight operation with such limited data.

### 2 Further, the FAA proposal requires operators, who colle ct a multitude of aviation safety data on their aircraft, to collect and separate that data in a manner not required by the Act

. This is an added and unnecessary burden, especially as this additional data contributes little in terms of safety analysis.

W e urge the FAA to collect the data in a way that fully the aggregate s the information for purposes of public disclosure on an industry basis so as not to disclose proprietary information that can be used to a competitive advantage ; the objective of this da ta collection effort is safety, not tracking the commercial

activities of individual company operations

. We fully support data collection efforts that assist industry operators, representative organizations, and the FAA in our combined efforts to enhance safety.

### 3 Specific Concerns with Draft FAA Report for H elicopter Air Ambulance (HAA) Data Collection

The FAA should adhere to the requirements of the HAA data collection statute (49 USC § 44731), mindful of its aviation safety purpose, and do so without unduly burdening air medical operators or compromising proprietary information . The draft data collection report does not reflect the spirit or actual language of the Act. AMOA’s specific concerns are summarized below:

Section 44731 Requirement Draft FA A Data Report Requirement AMOA Proposed Changes

(1) Number of helicopters the operator uses to provide HAA

services and the base locations of the helicopters Goes beyond the law to require reporting of each helicopter by registration number and its

corres ponding base location. Many helicopters are not assigned to a specific base; further, the base location of HAA helicopters is not static. The draft report also interprets the word

“base” as base location at time of

“ flight activity ” and is confusing

– do es this mean location of the helicopter or location of the base at each point of

takeoff? The FAA instead should require separate reporting of the number of helicopters flown and the bases used each quarter . Further, a requirement to report base

locatio n should use consistent methodology and not allow for

alternatives based on “best judgment.”

(2) Number of flights and hours

flown

, by registration number

, during which the helicopters were providing HAA services [ Note that this is the only data point i n the law requiring correlation to

individual aircraft registration

number s ] Goes beyond the law to require reporting o f this information correlated

to base location and the other data

elements

. The FAA should track the plain language of the law to requi re quarterly reporting of the number of flights and hours flown by registration number. Further and to avoid confusion, a “flight”

should be defined to mean each flight segment involving a takeoff and landing. (3) Number of flight requests accepted or de clined and the type of each such flight request. Goes beyond the law to require a report correlating this information to registration number, base location, time of day, total flight time, IFR time

, thereby making reporting significantly

more burdensome. The FAA instead should require reporting of the number of flight requests accepted or declined and the type of the request on a quarterly basis without a correlation to registration number, base location and the

other data elements. (4) Number of acciden ts, if any, involving the operator’s helicopters while providing air ambulance

services and a description of the

accidents Consistent with the law

. T he definition of “accident”

should track the NTSB definition to assure reporting consistency.

(5) Number of flights and hours flown under IFR while providing

HAA services Goes beyond the law to require reporting of this information correlated to registration number, base location, time of day, total flight time. The FAA instead should require

the number of flights and hours flown IFR on a quarterly basis

without a correlation to registration number and base location and the other data points. (6) Time of day of each flight flown while providing HAA services Goes beyond the law to require reporting of this i nformation correlated to registration number and base location and the other data points. Further, the draft report interprets this data point to mean “time of day at dispatch” but “dispatch”, a misnomer, would be the time a third party makes a call for H AA The FAA instead should consider defining time of day to be consistent with the regulations defining “day” and “night”.

### 4 services, not the time of day the flight

takes off

-- what the law appears to call

for. The FAA also should be aware that this data element alone is likely to result in over 100,000 reports on a quarterly basis just for AMOA members. How will a spread sheet along the lines of the draft report accommodate this number? (7) The number of incidents, if any, in which a helicopter was not directly dispatched and arrived but not utilized for patient transport Goes beyond the law to require reporting of this information correlated to registration number , base location and the other data points

. There is no evidence that any

such incidents e ver take place, but to comply with the plain language of the law, the FAA instead should require reporting of any such incidents each quarter without requiring a correlation to registration number , base location, IFR time , time of day

.