Medical Volunteers Vow They’ll Carry On : Charity: No flight moratorium is planned, but a former member blasts LIGA over ‘needless tragedy,’ saying it fails to screen pilots and puts lives in jeopardy.

Though stunned by the loss of fellow volunteers in a fatal air crash, LIGA International Inc. leaders said Tuesday that they are determined to continue humanitarian flights to Mexico, which they described as safer than driving on some Southern California freeways.

“Someone asked me this morning if we’re going to put a moratorium on flights,” said Jacki Hanson, a nurse who has been flying with the medical relief organization for more than a dozen years. That “would be a sacrilege and it would disgrace the memories of the boys that were killed.”

But one former LIGA member Tuesday blasted the organization, claiming it fails to adequately screen its pilots and jeopardizes the lives of well-meaning volunteers.

“I’m absolutely furious over this needless tragedy,” said Dr. Elias Amador of Rancho Palos Verdes, who is chief pathologist at King-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles and a former LIGA volunteer. “It never should have happened. The organization should have taken steps to prevent this. But didn’t.”

The crash, which killed four people including two physicians from UCI Medical Center, has been a devastating setback for the organization founded in 1935 to help poor and disadvantaged residents of rural Mexico.

The fatal crash was the second in LIGA’s 60-year history, members said. The first killed four men in 1964. Amador says there have been at least five other accidents in which LIGA volunteers were injured.

In the early days, LIGA’s pioneers traveled to remote villages on horseback, braving harsh weather and terrain to treat patients who otherwise would have received no medical care, members said.

LIGA’s founder, Dr. Iner Ritchie, started the medical missions after a train trip to Mexico during which he noticed Yaqui Indians beside the tracks in obvious need of care. LIGA-- league in Spanish--took its name and began its flights after World War II.

The same spirit that inspired LIGA’S pioneers is found in its current volunteers, including those who perished in Friday’s crash, members said.

“The need still exists . . . and in general our flights are very safe,” said Dr. Lawrence A. Wallington, a Cerritos general surgeon and pilot who flew his 220th mission last weekend. “It is very important for the people (whom the doctors serve) who do not have the opportunities and advantages we have. . . . We want to share our abilities and love with them.”

LIGA volunteers--about half of them doctors and other medical professionals--fly down to Mexico on the first weekend of each month, bringing supplies and medical care to hundreds of villagers at several clinics in Sonora and Sinaloa.

The Santa Ana-based organization, with one paid staff person and a slim annual budget of $200,000, has about 2,000 members, though a much smaller number are regulars at the clinics.

Most are from California, but some hail from other parts of the nation, including Nevada and Arizona. They are recruited mostly by word of mouth, and pay their own way down. In Southern California, each member pays $170 per trip.

But the long flights and the even longer days in the clinic are well worth it, such longtime volunteers as nurse Hanson say.

“Immediately you are surrounded by the 150 people waiting for you when you arrive--all smiles and hugs,” she said.

On Saturdays, volunteers spend as much as 14 hours performing everything from basic dental care to surgeries on cleft pallets or club feet. Hanson said that because of LIGA, grandparents have seen their grandchildren for the first time after cataract surgery, and children who never would have walked can now run.

“You can’t replace that,” she said.

Hanson said she has felt unsafe on a flight only once. In 1990, she said, she suffered a broken heel in a rough landing in San Blas, where she coordinates a clinic. She said the plane was seriously damaged.

The pilot, whom she did not identify, was not allowed to fly with LIGA again, Hanson said.

“Everybody else was OK,” she said. “It was pretty minor.”

Hanson said she fears Friday’s crash may keep some people from volunteering for LIGA, but she is certain it won’t deter the regulars. She and others said they feel less safe on certain freeways.

“There are certain hazards in everything,” Hanson said. “I’ve been in three auto accidents and I still drive a car.”

Ray Hendrickson, a psychologist, attorney and pilot for LIGA, said the organization sends 30 planes a month to Mexico. Considering how much it flies, he said, the organization’s safety record is exemplary.

But Amador, 62, who is not a pilot, said that LIGA has compromised volunteers’ safety more than once.

He said it has consistently failed to check pilots’ flying ability and their ability to fly using instruments. He cited at least five prior air crashes where LIGA volunteers were injured while flying in Mexico.

“I refuse to go back to LIGA,” said Amador, who quit in 1993 after writing a scathing letter to LIGA’s board of directors detailing what he believed to be an unusual number of airplane accidents.

Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report.

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Flying Physicians

The two doctors and two pilots who were killed in a plane crash Friday were volunteers for LIGA International Inc., a humanitarian group providing medical services to the needy in Mexico. A look at LIGA:

* Founded: 1935 by Loma Linda general practitioner Iner Ritchie

* Home base: Santa Ana

* Other names: Flying Doctors of Mercy; LIGA is Spanish for league

* Volunteers: About 2,000 nationwide

* Annual budget: $200,000, mostly from private donations. Volunteers pay own way to clinics

* Services provided: General medical and dental care, various surgeries

* Missions: Flights are made on first weekend of each month to Sinaloa and Sonora, Mexico

* Clinics: Situated in Guaymas, El Fuerte, Ocoroni, San Blas, San Jose de Bacum, Ruiz Cortinez, Choix

Source: Times reports