Watching the friendly skies

SWANTON, Ohio - Hundreds of flights take off from airports around Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan every day.

But how do we know those planes that take to the skies will make it back on the ground safely?

Like most, air passengers book a flight without thinking twice. But here is some food for thought. According to the National Transportation and Safety Board more than 1,000 people have died in plane crashes in Ohio in the past 45 years.

"We practice safety every day out here," said Steve Arnold, Toledo Express Airport director. "We have a good group of people who deal with that all the time."

It's those people and the FAA in the control tower who work to prevent scenes like the August fatal airplane and  helicopter crash over the Hudson River in New York City. Nine people died after the single-engine aircraft collided with a sightseeing helicopter.

"In that situation you are flying fairly lower in a fairly narrow corridor," Arnold said. "But it's become very congested."

Tom Trumball, president of Suburban Aviation in Ottawa Lake, Mich., has been piloting planes since he was 16. He is a flight instructor and owns Toledo Suburban Airport, a small, private airport off Whiteford Road in Monroe County.

Trumball says although there have been 100 mid-air collisions in the past 10 years, crashes like the one in Lower Manhattan are rare. That is where proper training and FAA rules come in to play.

"There's definitely a code with pilots and it's a code of safety," Trumball said.

But aircraft flying out of Suburban, like other small airports in the region, have challenges large jets at Toledo Express don't. They have no tower to watch out for them.

"It's really just a small percentage that are towered airports," Trumball said.

Cessna pilots rely on their eyes. Once they radio to air traffic control their position, the rule of thumb is see and be seen.

"Because we follow a prescribed pattern, the other pilots know where to look to see us," Trumball said.

Cessna pilots rely on their eyes. Once they radio to air traffic control their position, the rule of thumb is see and be seen.

"Because we follow a prescribed pattern, the other pilots know where to look to see us," Trumball said.

"As close as I'm going to be to another airplane is hopefully a couple of miles," said John Woody, Suburban Aviation's chief flight instructor. "I don't plan on getting any closer than that. It's very big, the sky is and these airplanes are quite small so it's pretty hard to have to share the same space."

But if clouds are a factor, the rules change. Luckily high tech instruments in the cockpit can come in to play.

"If we're on a collision course, there is actually a computer voice that will say 'traffic' to us over the headset," Woody added.

Of course, it is a different story the closer you get to a more congested area. The tower at Toledo Express will pick up anything that gets near its airspace. It then becomes a carefully choreographed dance to keep the air traffic moving out of each others ways.

And if they want to land, they need a flight plan.

"There are other aircraft that are coming in here and it gets coordinated," Arnold said. "Just like that dance you talked about, they have to have a slot to come in here."

But, it is not always that easy. We have seen our share of tragedy.

In April 2003, a Grand Aire jet crashed in to Oak Openings Preserve killing all three people on board just a mile southwest of Toledo Express. The National Transportation Safety Board found icing conditions and the flight instructor's supervision of the flight - basically human error - contributed to that crash.

It is a situation all pilots and airports strive to prevent, and why training, safety, and communication are key.

"Coordinating those things together and everything meshes and that's why things are as safe as they are," Arnold said.

Thousands of medical patients are airlifted to and from hospitals and accident scenes every year.

Mercy's Life Flight choppers have transported a total of 90,000 patients since its inception, but it's no easy task.

Two air ambulance services - Mercy's Life Flight and ProMedica Air - fly the skies over Toledo. Crews from both say the same when it comes to safety - everyone goes home.

They lift off from tops of buildings and often land in unexpected places all in an effort to get patients the care they need that much faster.

"We can reduce the time it takes to get to a tertiary care centers by more than half," said Julie Goins, Mercy Life Flight Program Manager. "So, rapid transport is our primary mission."

 It sounds simple, but a lot goes in to making sure these machines, the patients, and crew they are carrying arrive to their destination in one piece. A tedious series of safety checks are done before the craft even lifts off, and once in the air a call goes out on an agreed radio frequency.

"We just give a call to the blind and let people know where we are and where we are going," said Bobby Crees, a ProMedica Air pilot.

"There are landmarks around the city that we'll call out that everyone's aware of," added Mike Conrad, Mercy Life Flight lead pilot. "We're over this point coming to Saint V's and if there's someone else out there, they'll let us know."

And chances are, some else is out there.

"There are times, especially in a nice, warm Sunday afternoon when everybody's out flying their airplanes it can be pretty congested," Crees said. "You can have airplanes buzzing by all the time."

The goal is to keep a mile between aircraft, so pilots keep their eyes to the sky.

"You want to be scanning and looking at the sky and looking for a white speck," Conrad said.

Navigation tools help keep track of towers but other things on the ground could mean trouble, too. So everyone on board helps keep a watch.

"When we do not have a patient on board the nurse, paramedic, or the doctor is in the front seat and everybody is responsible for looking for obstacles - whether its a bird, another aircraft," Goins said.

"You need to as a team focus on every single thing you can do," added Dr. Dave Lindstrom, ProMedica Air Medical Director. "People can get distracted and we hold each other accountable for that. Communicate very clearly. If the pilot is looking down, he tells me so I can be looking up so that we don't fly in to something."

ProMedica Air was established in 1999 and has never had a crash. Life Flight, now in its 30th year, unfortunately has. Both Life Flight crashes were weather-related -- the first in 1985 and the second in 1999 when a Life Flight helicopter crashed in to a Central Toledo home as a result of snow squalls. The three crew members were seriously injured.

Steps have been taken to be sure nothing like that ever happens again, and air ambulance services in Toledo have a steadfast rule.

"Our Cardinal Rule is anyone can always say 'abort'," Dr. Lindstrom said. "And you say 'abort' if there's trees or wires that you saw at the last second."

"If at any point in any transport if any crew members feel uncomfortable and they do not want to continue the transport for safety reasons they can abort the mission," added Goins.

The dedicated men and women who are part of the medical air transport network take what they do seriously, and their biggest mission is to make it home from work safe so they can go on to fly another day.

"They pay us to be able to react to emergencies correctly," Crees said. "Just taking off and landing is not difficult."

"Statistically it's safer than being in the back of an ambulance," added Conrad.

"It's not a big deal," Goins said. "We do it because we love it. If it was unsafe we wouldn't be here. But its not risky."

Interestingly enough, the air ambulance pilots rarely ever know anything at all about the patients they're carrying. That way emotions can't come in to play and their is no pressure to have to fly, especially if there are conditions that make it unsafe.

(FOX Toledo's Barrett Andrews contributed to this report)