A couple of months ago, I asked the CEO of a helicopter manufacturer why it was taking so long for the Chinese market to fully open up. He explained that the Air Force there still controlled the airspace, and they were in no hurry to turn it over to civilians.
Not for security reasons as you might suspect, but rather out of the fear that they would be blamed for any civil aircraft accidents. The penalties for failure in China remain severe. After all, this is country that still executes its own citizens for nonviolent crimes including fraud, embezzlement and organized prostitution. Be unlucky enough to be sitting at the radar scope when there is a mid-air and — rut-roh.
This kind of "aviation culture" goes a long way to explain while it has taken so long for civil helicopter EMS to come to the world's most populous country, arguably where it is needed the most.
On Oct. 9, Airbus Helicopters delivered an EC135 light twin EMS helicopter to the 999 Emergency Rescue Center, a subsidiary of the Beijing Red Cross Foundation. Astonishingly, this is the first civil EMS helicopter in China. Even Haiti already had civil HEMS.
No one honestly thinks this one helicopter is going to change much in a country so vast in which the bureaucracy moves so slowly. But to understand China is to appreciate the enormous role symbolism plays in the culture.
During the handover of the EC135, Ma Runhai, executive vice president of Beijing Red Cross Society of China, said the helicopter "enables us to help achieve the national strategic goal of comprehensively deepening the reforms and propelling the modernization of the governance system and capacities. It will also help Beijing Red Cross Society of China to achieve the goal of becoming a leader in China and a first-class organization in the world."
A delegation of doctors from the 999 Center currently is getting schooled on the HEMS equipment in Germany, and Airbus is providing rotorcraft training, organizing outreach and establishing relationships and workshops for the Chinese with leading European air rescue operators who can act as mentors.
China has opened its low-altitude airspace in a handful of provinces over the last few years, but most of the country remains a no-fly zone for civil aircraft. Still — provided all goes well for this first helicopter — the 999 Center plans to add three more to the fleet in the coming years.
As the Chinese proverb instructs, "Be not afraid of going slowly, be afraid only of standing still."
