Since taking my management position at the air ambulance company and assuming responsibility for the dispatch department I have gone through ground school and had extra FAA and CAMTS required training and drills. We have a good, solid group of dispatchers that I am very proud to work with. A long road from bedside nursing, I know, and the challenge has been frustrating and rewarding both.
But today was not a drill. Our flight from Denver's landing time came and went. No "wheels down" call from the crew. No answer on any one's phone. Our tracking software said they landed but the FBO hadn't seen them. At 30 minutes the dispatcher and I activated the overdue aircraft protocol per the FAA protocols.
The dispatcher's brother was on that plane. He is one of our paramedics.
As I made phone calls -- automatically, because we had trained for this -- a million things ran through my mind. The crew on the plane who are friends, co-workers and brothers. The fact that had my husband not had a class this morning he would have had this Denver flight. My pulse was just racing. It was like my first code, but at least in a code I can DO something.
Five minutes later, they called in with wheels down. They had brought along an extra pilot to do a check ride so the flight time was much longer since they were shooting landings and whatever pilot shit they do, circling over town while everyone at their base thinks they are dead.
Longest five minutes of my life, I swear. Jason said he aged ten years in that five minutes. Fifteen years of nursing, working in critical care... nothing like the feeling in your gut when you don't know where your airplane and five crew members are. I'm still kind of shook up.
What a day. We'll have our debriefing tomorrow (which we always have after an "incident"--they are quite helpful and constructive, actually) but I've already told the pilots to call already before they do that kind of shit again. Jeez.
