srst wrote: "The tragic crash of a medical helicopter last week points up a situation that needs to be addressed. The medical helicopter industry supposedly has more stringent guidelines for training pilots and maintaining equipment than do most other airline industries, but these guidelines do not appear to be working: statistics reveal that the rate of medical-helicopter accidents is much higher than the rate of accidents for nonmedical helicopters or commercial
airliners."

The suggestion is that the higher accident rate among medical-helicopters indicates poorly trained pilots and bad maintenance. This is not necessarily true. There are other possible explanations for these stats.

Can we assume that the flying conditions are the same? No. Commercial airlines don't fly in bad weather, but emergency helicopters do. They fly in really bad weather because lives are at stake.

Medical helicopters fly at lower altitudes and must often fly into difficult locations (e.g. cliff ledge), where accidents are more likely.

Can we assume that the medical helicopters are the same make and model as non-medical helicopters? If the medical helicopters are not as advanced as non-medical helicopters then it may not be reasonable to conclude that the pilots and the maintenance are to blame.

That should be enough to work with.

Cheers,
Brent