Sole survivor Jordan Wells can still remember the very last seconds of Trooper 2. "I remember was the look on [Trooper First Class] Lippy's face, then I heard something rub against the helicopter and then I blacked out," recounted Wells.But exactly 13 months and more than 20 surgeries later, Wells came to the National Transportation Safety Board’s hearing in Washington DC to find out the details of what happened next. The NTSB ruled Trooper 2 crashed when Pilot Stephen Bunker tried quickly to descend beneath the fog and clouds to get a visual, only to hit trees and crash in Walker Mill Regional Park. The board found Bunker was technically current, but not proficient at using flight instruments for approaches at night or in bad weather and that lack of training by the Maryland State Police contributed to this crash. "Not only was the safety board disappointed but I think the taxpayers of Maryland should be disappointed as well as those people requesting service that they are not getting the HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) they thought they were getting and I hope that this accident will serve as a wake up call," said board member Robert Sumwalt. There were other factors as well. The board said Bunker made a poor assessment of the weather that night, he may have been fatigued and that air traffic control by area towers was questionable.But the NTSB's report also focused on the two hour search and rescue.It noted that despite having the GPS technology, troopers at the state police helicopter dispatch center called SYScom were not trained properly to understand it and only added to the confusion and the delay. "One of the more unfortunate things about this accident is that they did have a very accurate position within several hundred feet of the accident sight seconds after the impact occurred and for a variety of reasons, some of which I discussed, that information didn't turn into finding the helicopter very quickly," said investigator Jason Fedok.Finding the chopper quicker would not have made a difference for the other people on board, but could have helped Wells who lay severely injured for two hours. "What am I gonna do? Be angry about it now. It's not gonna do anything ya know, but um...it upsets me still, but I'm dealing with it." The other victims' families were represented at today's findings as well and all have put the state on notice that lawsuits may be coming.
As a publically funded operation, the Maryland State Police Aviation Command does not have to follow the strict FAA standards as private medevac operations.
The NTSB's chief recommendation is to make MSP and the 40 other public operations follow those stricter guidelines.
Maryland State Police has been proactive since the crash in instituting new safety measures. Better maintenance logs are kept, there is stricter training and tougher guidelines on when and when not to fly. The NTSB did make note that MSP has been very cooperative in their investigation and believes the organization is committed to improving the Maryland medevac system.
