Eight members of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service have been sent to Sweden to be trained in handling extreme rescue situations.
Each year about 212 missions are performed on the Mid-North Coast alone in a bid to save lives.
With the lives of others dependent on the rapid response of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, four pilots and four air crew members travelled to the Oxford Aviation Academy in Stockholm to take part in an intensive five-day training course in October.
Richard Jones, General Manager, Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service, said, “Our rescue crews save lives on a daily basis and often risk their own, so ensuring they have access to the best training facilities in the world is something we take very seriously.”
The Oxford Aviation Academy is a world-class facility providing integrated aviation training to pilots and crew members from across the globe. Life-sized simulators are programmed with different scenarios that the crew will have to manage. For example:
1. The helicopter flies to a road accident with cars on fire. Paramedics and patients must be taken on board. On return, there is a hydraulic system breakdown, fuel supply interruption and navigation problems. The crew must move through various decision-making hierarchies to find solutions to these problems. This is sometimes referred to as Line Orientated Flight Training (LOFT).
2. The air crew members must take control of a helicopter through auto pilot and land the aircraft after the pilot becomes incapacitated.
Simulations can be tailored to the specific needs of the pilots in NSW, for example, winching from a collier at sea, conducting retrieval from a mine site with mine safety personnel, or night time evacuation from a cliff.
Richard comments, “Situations can be practised over and over again until the entire crew gets it right. This type of hands-on training increases confidence and
crew coordination, while improving skill levels to deal with both the everyday and unexpected situations.”
Training is an integral part of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service’s quality assurance regarding the performance and safety of pilots and crew members. Training obligations are a requirement of the service’s contract with the Ambulance Service of NSW and, by completing this training, they exceed the standards set by the Civil Aviation Authority.
The trip was thanks to a $130,000 donation from Xstrata Coal.
The purpose of the missions…
â- 60 per cent of the missions are to sites of accidents where people are seriously injured.
â- 35 per cent involves transferring people from small hospitals in the region to a large tertiary hospital such as the John Hunter
â- Five per cent of missions are classified as ‘Search and Rescue’, which can involve securing people who are in distress at sea or in remote regions such as forests.
