2005 Loganair Britten-Norman Islander crash

On 15 March 2005, a Britten-Norman Islander, operated by Loganair as an air ambulance, crashed off the coast of Scotland, killing both people on board.

The aircraft was en route to Campbeltown Airport in Argyll, Scotland, to pick up a ten-year-old boy with acute abdominal pain, suspected to be appendicitis. After a flight that included many navigational irregularities, the pilot was flying the normal approach, which took the aircraft out to sea before turning back toward the airport. The pilot informed controllers that he had completed the turn, and that was the last transmission received from the aircraft. Investigators conclude the aircraft hit the water a few seconds after that transmission. Both occupants of the aircraft, the pilot and a paramedic seated at his station behind the pilot, were killed. The ensuing investigation concluded that the pilot allowed the aircraft to fly too low, and it descended unchecked into the sea. The pilot was also fatigued, overworked, lacked recent flying practice, and he might have suffered from an undetermined influence, such as disorientation, distraction, or subtle incapacitation, as evidenced by several navigational errors, miscommunications, and mismanagement of his instruments. Although the weather might have precluded a safe landing in Campbeltown, the weather was not a cause of the accident. The patient was eventually driven overland to a Glasgow hospital, where he was treated for a ruptured appendix.

The paramedic's body was found strapped in to his seat with a severe, possibly fatal, head injury from an impact against the back of the pilot's seat in front of him. Despite the death of both occupants of the aircraft, the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch, or AAIB, considered the impact survivable by the pilot. Had the paramedic been wearing a shoulder harness, the AAIB concluded it was likely that the paramedic would have survived the impact with the water with little or no injury, though it is possible he might then have succumbed to the cold water. The pilot, whose uninjured body was found nine months after the accident, and who had been wearing a shoulder harness, most likely survived the accident and escaped the aircraft, only to die of hypothermia in the cold water. As a result of this accident, regulations were enacted in 2015 by the European Union (EU) that require all aircraft of similar size that are used to transport passengers to be equipped with a shoulder harness, or "upper torso restraint system" (UTR system), for each passenger seat.

Two more recommendations from the AAIB investigators of this accident were under consideration (as of the end of 2015) by EU regulators. These recommendations would require two pilots for all air ambulance flights and require a radar altimeter or "other independent low height warning device" (such as a GPWS) on all single-pilot public transport flights conducted in limited visibility (i.e., IFR passenger flights).