On ALERT in Arkansas

The Arkansas Children's Hospital's aviation program---Angel One---has been awarded FAA approval for its Helicopter Flight Data Monitoring/Flight Operations Quality Assurance (HFDM/FOQA) program. As one of the leading small operators of Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) programs in the country, Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH) has continually set the standard for the industry, with this being the first HEMS program in the nation to reach such a milestone, ACH has utilized Appareo Systems' ALERTS - Aircraft Logging and Event Recording for Training and Safety - system as the backbone of their HFDM program. ALERTS, the first lightweight, low-cost and fully integrated system for light aircraft is in use by helicopter operators around the world and has recently seen increased implementation in HEMS operations.

FOQA and HFDM programs provide aircraft operators with concrete data on how their fleets are performing through flight data collection and analysis, allowing those operators to identify potentially problematic incidents and trends before they result in a dangerous and costly accident. An important factor to encourage participation in such FOQA/HFDM programs is that the FAA's approval of their program allows the operator to work more collaboratively with federal flight safety regulators in evaluating and, if necessary, remediating flight safety issues and concerns. All data generated in an approved program can only be used for the purposes of the HFDM and its operational plan. Additionally, the HFDM information can be presented to the FAA in a standardized, de-identified format to help them better allocate resources and infrastructure.