Pilots' age and incidents in helicopter emergency medical services: a 5-year observational study

Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) are considered to have a higher risk of incidents compared to other airborne operations. As HEMS poses high cognitive demands, age-related cognitive changes of helicopter pilots might become a safety risk. The aim of this study was to estimate the association between the age of pilots and incidents in HEMS.

We conducted a retrospective observational study of incidents during HEMS operations of one Austrian and two German air rescue organizations between 2007 and 2011. The sample included 257 regularly operating HEMS pilots. Age of the pilots varied between 44.52 yr (SD = 7.80) in 2007 and 46.57 yr (SD = 8.14) in 2011. Incidents were categorized as the number of HEMS operations with at least one liability damage (LD). Statistical analyses used multilevel growth curve modeling with generalized linear mixed models.

1770 LD were observed during 402.372 HEMS operations (approximately four LD per 1000 operations). From 2007 to 2011 the average number of LD per year varied between M = 0.95-1.77 for pilots < 35 yr to M = 0.25-1.53 for pilots > or = 60 yr. There was no statistically significant main effect of pilot's age on the number of LD. There was a trend of an interaction effect between age and time, which suggests that pilots with higher age tended to be involved in slightly fewer LD with time than younger pilots.

In sum, findings provide no evidence that older pilots have a higher risk than younger pilots of being involved in an incident during HEMS operations.