By Earl Kelly
The Capital
Saying they’ve lost confidence in state police helicopter operations, some lawmakers yesterday revealed plans to ask the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a performance audit of the agency.
The threat to bring in the feds came when state auditors told the Joint Audit Committee they had reviewed 27 specific areas of the State Police Aviation Command’s helicopter operations, and found 22 types of deficiencies.
Most of the problems dealt with insufficient record keeping and problems retaining technical personnel. Also, auditors found, the Aviation Command had non-technical personnel overseeing maintenance operations.
The audit report prompted Sen. John Astle, D-Annapolis, and Sen. E.J. Pipkin, R-Elkton, to call for federal intervention.
“I have got to tell you, if this was a commercial operation, they would have been shut down a long time ago,” said Mr. Astle, a retired Marine and career commercial medevac pilot. “I am concerned about safety.”
State police operate 12 helicopters at eight bases around the state, and the bulk of their flights are medevac missions. Maryland is the only jurisdiction in the nation where police run a statewide medevac system.
Lawmakers yesterday said they worried that state police did not keep complete maintenance records for major components, such as the number of hours a particular helicopter engine had been operated.
Also, it came out during the hearing that state police allegedly had “sanitized” incident reports to remove incriminating information about safety problems before making them public.
“There is always the possibility something was not recorded,” said state Chief Auditor Bruce A. Myers, who oversaw the audit. “That would be difficult to find during an audit.”
Mr. Myers explained that his auditors were not aviation experts, and they had relied on records provided by the Maryland State Police.
The 115-page report Mr. Myers’ team prepared showed that six helicopters, or half the state fleet, were out of service for maintenance four months a year.
Mr. Astle said he was uncomfortable with the way state police operated the Aviation Command, including having non-mechanics heading maintenance operations.
Mr. Pipkin expressed dismay that it took an audit to uncover information state police should have been reporting to the General Assembly all along.
“Do you believe an FAA inspection would be helpful?” Mr. Pipkin asked Mr. Myers.
“It sure couldn’t hurt to have an inspection,” Mr. Myers said.
Mr. Pipkin and Mr. Astle said after the hearing that they didn’t know the protocol for asking a federal agency to look into the state operation, but they planned to investigate the matter.
The state police rarely hear sustained criticism from the General Assembly because some members say they are intimidated by the powerful police lobby.
Yesterday, though, a number of delegates and senators voiced their concerns and at least one called for putting the system in the hands of private contractors.
“The Aviation (Command) agrees with the (audit report) findings over and over and over, but I am not optimistic this is going to be turned around quickly enough for the health and safety of Marylanders,” said Del. Wade Kach, R-Baltimore County.
“If you bring in a private (operator), it would be regulated by the FAA … and I think it would be the way to solve the problem,” he said noting that state police do not have to meet the high federal standards set for commercial operations.
The General Assembly is considering providing $130 million for the purchase of a new fleet of helicopters, but Mr. Pipkin said that proposal should be reconsidered.
“You ask for $130 million for new, when you haven’t taken care of the old,” he scolded state police Maj. A.J. McAndrew, commander of the Aviation Command.
Maj. McAndrew told the joint committee that he considered the audit to be a useful management tool. He went on to ask committee members not to be hasty in their decisions.
The Aviation Command has not had a fatal helicopter crash since Jan. 19, 1986, he said, and police medevac flights have helped save 120,000 lives.
“We would urge the members of the committee not to let the administrative shortcomings overshadow … our accomplishments,” Maj. McAndrew said.
Maj. McAndrew said his department is working to implement the recommendations state auditors made, and recently appointed a new maintenance director, who is a qualified technician, and also named a chief pilot to help management the division.
These concessions weren’t enough to keep Mr. Astle from boring in again as he noted that Maj. McAndrew’s department has said it will implement 19 of the auditors’ 22 findings.
“Why did it take an audit for you to begin to address these 19 issues?” Mr. Astle asked.
Several powerful lawmakers, including members of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee and the House Appropriation Committee, sat in the audience for the hearing.
Yesterday’s onslaught came on the heels of a joint committee meeting on Thursday.
At that hearing, some members of the Joint Committee on Health Care Delivery and Financing said reducing the number of new state police helicopters from 12 to 10 would not hurt services, and would free up millions of dollars for other medical services.
The joint committee’s co-chairman, Del. Dan K. Morhaim, D-Baltimore and himself an emergency physician, said the state could save between $20 million and $30 million by reducing the number of state-owned helicopters.
Some aviation experts have said that one solution to the problem would be for state police to lease and operate helicopters, with the leasing corporation handling the maintenance.
In March, an expose in The Capital found that about half the patients transported by helicopter have nonlife-threatening injuries and are released within 24 hours.
It costs about $20 million each year to operate the helicopters, and patients and insurance companies do not reimburse the state for flights.
Lawmakers say the Maryland State Police exert a lot of lobbying pressure on them, frequently through community fire and rescue departments that buy much of their equipment with grants provided by the same state office that oversees helicopter operations.
Mr. Pipkin said yesterday the lobbying was starting to heat up even before the hearing started, with constituents sending him e-mails filled with “half-truths” in defense of the state police system.
Also, at the end of the hearing, the presidents of the Maryland Flight Paramedics Association and the State Firemen’s Association testified on behalf of the state police.
With his voice breaking, Frank Underwood, head of the firemen’s association, told joint committee members that first responders on the ground are the ones who make the decision to call a medevac helicopter.
“The Maryland State Police are a vital link to saving lives - when we see that chopper arriving, we know (the patients) are going to make it,” he said. “We cause their maintenance, because we are saving your lives.”
Copyright 2008 Capital Gazette Communications, Inc.