A medical evacuation plane broke apart shortly after takeoff Friday and crashed in Nevada, killing all five people aboard. Transportation officials said Sunday this is the third fatal crash in four years for Utah-based Guardian Flight.
The Pilatus PC-12 — a single-engine fixed-wing turboprop aircraft — left Reno-Tahoe International Airport at about 9 p.m. bound for Salt Lake City, said National Transportation Safety Board Vice Chair Bruce Landsberg. The plane was airborne about 15 minutes before crashing near Dayton, Nev.
There were icy conditions and moderate turbulence at the time, but “these airplanes are designed to fly in that type of weather condition,” Landsberg said, though he didn’t rule out weather as a factor in the crash.He said the five people who died were the pilot, a flight nurse, the patient, a paramedic and a family member. Landsberg said he didn’t have any details about what the medical emergency might have been.
Crews have recovered parts of the right wing and tail section at least a half-mile from the crash site, Landsberg said. Every piece of the plane, some the size of an outstretched hand, will be crucial to the investigation — especially because the plane did not have a flight data recorder or cockpit recorder.
“This is something that the NTSB would like to see the FAA require on these airplanes,” Landsberg said of the recording devices.Landsberg said the company’s other two fatal crashes, one in Alaska and one in Hawaii, killed three people each.The Alaska crash happened Jan. 29, 2019, about 100 miles south of Juneau, according to the NTSB’s final report. The best investigators could determine was that the reason for the crash was a loss of control. The Hawaii crash took place on Dec.
Landsberg said Guardian Flight also had an incident in which a pilot in Arizona overcorrected after an autopilot malfunction and briefly lost control of the plane, but no one was hurt.“Our organization is grieving the loss of our valued team members and extends our deepest condolences to their families,” wrote REMSA Health President and CEO Barry Duplantis.Kyle Rempfer contributed to this report.
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