HLF Media Statement

After an in-depth investigation and analysis of the facts and circumstances surrounding the December 15, 2022 Hawaii Life Flight accident off the coast of Maui, Hawaii, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its final report on the accident.

Guardian Flight, which operates fixed-wing aircraft for Hawaii Life Flight, lost three employees, coworkers and friends that day, and our thoughts remain with the families and communities impacted by this tragic accident.

That’s why we remain focused on what can be done to prevent this from happening again and protecting the safety and well-being of our patients and crew.

Guardian Flight participated with the NTSB and FAA in their investigation of the facts leading up to this report, and we are all grateful for their diligent efforts. We are closely reviewing the final report’s details and remain committed to our ongoing work to address any safety recommendations identified.

Guardian Flight and our colleagues across Global Medical Response (GMR) have been investing in improving the safety of our 150,000 flights a year. Since the accident, those investments have included:

  • Increasing safety and training resources and raising pilot flight and experience requirements, like:
    • Adding safety staff.
    • Enhancing our pilot training program and new hire training. All pilots return to training headquarters at least once annually.
    • Enhancing annual emergency procedures training, including spatial disorientation competency evaluation for all pilots.
    • Increased our pilot flight experience standards to exceed FAA minimums.
  • Certificate management changes including:
    • Moving the principal base of the Guardian Fight certificate to the Dallas area, to be located near other GMR flight operations.
    • Leadership changes, as well as appointing a single COO for the certificate and Chief Pilot for all of Guardian Flight.
  • Fleet modernization initiatives and aircraft safety updates across all air carrier certificates.
    • After conducting a fleet-wide safety inspection of King Air C-90, B-200 & Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, we augmented legacy equipment to improve pilot situational awareness and increase system redundancy and reliability.
    • Fitted all C-90 aircraft with GI 275 Standby Attitude Indicators directly in front of the pilot’s view.
    • Expanded and ramped up the King Air cockpit instrumentation modernization program.
  • Implemented a fixed wing national second level review center, which is unique in the air medical industry.
    • Prior to accepting a flight, our rotor wing teams are required by the FAA to conduct a flight risk assessment and review any flights receiving a medium or high score with their respective Operations Control Center for a “second level review.” This second level review can decline the flight or provide mitigation strategies if it is accepted.
    • This process is not required by the FAA for fixed wing aircraft, but we now conduct this additional safety measure, providing second level review through our Fixed Wing second level review Center in Texas.

Our teams work hard to provide safe, effective pre-hospital acute care to the patients we serve and are constantly improving the safety of that care each and every day.