Mosquito Control Helicopter Crashes at County-owned Golf Club

 

Eight (8) people were nearly killed by a mosquito control helicopter at our publicly owned St. Johns Golf Club on Monday, August 16th. 

Among them were St. Johns County Commission Vice Chair Henry Dean, his golfing partner, four other golfers, the pilot and an AMCD employee.

On the morning of Monday, August 16, 2021, one of he Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County (AMCD)'s three (3) helicopters landed on our St. Johns County Golf Course. Then an employee retrieved mosquito traps near the 4th and 5th tee, and the helicopter took off, only to crash moments later, with its blades hitting a big pine tree, cutting off large limb segments -- debris that went flying and nearly killed six (6) golfers. 

It was five (5) hours before a drug and alcohol test was administered.  Why?

The incurious Florida Highway Patrol report indicated that FAA would not be responding to the scene. Why?  

Did FHP take the AMCD pilot's word for what happened?  Why were no witnesses interviewed?

Why was AMCD Director Rui-De "Rudy" Xue slow to notify AMCD Commissioners, and slower still to tell them how close we came to a fatality?  Why has Dr. Xue been slow to provide documents?

Dr. Xue plans to retire soon.  Now could be a good time -- a "good career move," as Gore Vidal once said of Truman Capote.  

It is wrong that a government-owned helicopter should land on a government-owned golf course, endangering golfers and employees, without any authorization.  

No helipad.  

No rhyme or reason why a helicopter is required, when there are golf carts available.  

Is this is willful, wanton recklessness?  Negligence?  You tell me.

This incident sounds like a wacky Caddyshack movie script with stoned pilots.  

It reminds me of a case in Mississippi, where a man found a decomposed, putrid, decaying ptomainic human toe in chewing tobacco he chewed. The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld a plaintiff's verdict finding, We can imagine no reason why, with ordinary care human toes could not be left out of chewing tobacco, and if toes are found in chewing tobacco, it seems to us that somebody has been very careless." Pillars v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 117 Miss. 490; 78 So. 365 (1918).

Likewise, I think "somebody" at AMCD must have "been very careless" to permit a helicopter pilot to land and take off from the County golf course, unadorned by permission.

FHP's non-investigation typifies the law quality of its work when local government officials are involved, like its failure to obtain a blood alcohol test from controversial corrupt St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR (2005-2021) when he was in a suspicious automobile wreck without wearing a seatbelt on Anastasia Island in 2005, living him dependent on opioids. 

In the words of the legendary John Randolph of Roanoke, is AMCD "like a rotten mackerel mackerel by moonlight -- it both shines and stinks?"  

It shines with its science and dedicated staff, but it stinks with its coverup-prone management.

Since December 2006, I have been asking questions and demanding answers about AMCD's aerial program.  Eventually, all five AMCD Commissioners voted to cancel a no-bid contract for a $1.8 million luxury TEXTRON BELL JET HELICOPTER unadorned by a single accoutrement capable of killing skeeters, without having a pilot or hangar or any plan for what to do with the helicopter.

In 2021, we find ourselves with three (3) helicopters, one of which nearly killed County Commission Vice Chair I. Henry Dean this week.

Sloth and torpor among government agencies -- like FHP, AMCD, FAA NTSB and the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners --  often may put lives at risk.  

Thanks to Governor John Edward "Jeb" Bush and the Confederacy of Dunces -- Dull Republicans in our Florida legislature -- there is no longer a Florida OSHA and no more Florida state law OSHA protections for Florida state, county, municipal and special taxing district employees.  Federal OSHA once told me a city employee could "hang from a string from a roof at City Hall, with nothing federal OSHA could do to remedy the situation.

AMCD, like other Florida government agencies, does not give a fig about worker health and safety, it seems. 

If AMCD's mismanagement of the aerial program ever kills its pilot or other staff, who will mourn for them?

Does being AMCD mean "never having to say you're sorry.?  You tell me.

The Anastasia Mosquito Control Commission of St. Johns County (AMCD) is an independent special taxing district.  (Full disclosure: I ran for its board in 2020 and got 18,886 votes county-wide.)