MedFlight audit leads to ‘refining’ policies, plans for new fleet

Boston MedFlight execs are considering replacing the decades-old jet they use to transport hundreds of patients each year after an independent auditor highlighted a number of improvements they could make in the wake of a spate of mechanical issues exposed last year in a Herald report.

“In my 18 years, we hadn’t gone through a period of this many events, and we wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anything,” Charlie Blathras, chief operations manager for the Bedford-based nonprofit, said of the audit, which he said made 18 recommendations that mostly focused on “refining” policies MedFlight already has in place.

MedFlight officials refused to release the audit because they consider it an internal document. But after receiving it, Blathras said officials decided to solicit bids for a new jet, which is currently provided by Boston Air Charter.

“We are committed to working with our vendor with some of the issues identified in the recommendations,” he said. “We are looking at ways we can improve our program.”

The company’s 33-year-old jet, which flew 200 medical missions last year, is on the “back end of time when you think about replacing an aircraft,” Blathras said. And if MedFlight does contract for a new jet, it will be as part of a plan to replace its entire fleet of aircraft by 2016, including its more widely used copters.

The four copters flew 1,600 missions last year, and were the focus of a Herald story in September highlighting a series of seven incidents that included multiple engine failures, reports of smoke and fire in cabins and, in August, a door falling from a helicopter in flight.

Blathras said the audit found that six of the incidents were because of mechanical malfunctions that had no “causal link,” while the door incident was due to “human error.” The mechanic responsible is no longer working for Era Helicopters LLC, the company that operates and maintains MedFlight’s helicopters, and while he was off the job shortly after the incident, Blathras said he couldn’t say if he was fired.

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