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"  After years of waiting for one of America&amp;#039;s most dangerous industries to improve safety on its own, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed new rules on Thursday aimed at reducing the number of fatal medical helicopter crashes. Air ambulances killed 264 people between 1972 and 2008. If passed, the proposed regulations would require new safety technologies onboard medical helicopters, and new practices on the ground to help pilots fly safely.  &amp;quot;This is a significant proposal that will improve the safety of many helicopter flights in the United States,&amp;quot; Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said in a press release. Among the rules is a new requirement that all medical helicopters be equipped with terrain-awareness systems that warn pilots when they fly too close to the ground or to objects such as radio towers.  Operators would be required to conduct a risk analysis before each flight. Companies with 10 or more helicopters would have to create operations-control centers where trained personnel help pilots make safety decisions and avoid dangers midflight. The rules also strengthen minimum-visibility and -weather requirements. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re very supportive of the rule-making effort,&amp;quot; says Chris Eastlee, managing director of the Air Medical Operators Association, a trade group. The rules have been in the works for years, much to the frustration of people like Deborah Hersman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, who has urged the agency to move faster. &amp;quot;The FAA has been talking about a lot of these things for quite a long time,&amp;quot; says Jonathan Godfrey, a flight nurse who barely survived when his medical helicopter crashed into the Potomac River in 2005. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think it will be a big surprise to anybody.&amp;quot; For years, the FAA tried to improve safety by encouraging air medical companies to make voluntary improvements. But the number of accidents and deaths only continued to rise, peaking in 2008, when 29 people died in 10 crashes. By early 2009, the agency accepted that mandatory changes were necessary.  But according to safety experts and the National Transportation Safety Board, the proposed rules still fall short. The most obvious absence: A requirement that all medical helicopters be equipped with night-vision goggles. In a 2009 report, the safety board found that &amp;quot;a significant number&amp;quot; of night crashes in medical helicopters could be avoided if the aircraft were required to have night vision.  And instead of mandating flight data recorders on all medical helicopters, so that crash investigators can understand why crashes happen and help train pilots to avoid them in the future, the FAA advocates further studies.  &amp;quot;The FAA knows how to improve safety,&amp;quot; says Stacey Friedman, whose sister Erin Reed died in a medical helicopter crash into Puget Sound in 2005.  &amp;quot;The failure to mandate night-vision goggles and cockpit recorders is problematic... They are not moving fast enough to fix these problems.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a6203/faa-rules-make-medevac-helicopters-safer/>