3 dead after medical helicopter crashes in California
December 11, 2006
Compiled from various media reports:
A Mercy Air Service medical helicopter with three crew members aboard crashed Sunday night in a mountainous area near the summit of Cajon Pass, California, killing all aboard, officials said.
The helicopter was fliying back to its base at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, California, from Loma Linda University Medical Center when it went down in fog about 6:02 p.m. Before the crash, the crew had airlifted a patient from the community of Phelan, California, near the pass' summit, to the Loma Linda facility.
The names of the crew members have not yet been released. One female and two males were onboard.
Capt. Bret Raney of the San Bernardino County Fire Department said investigators could not confirm whether the helicopter struck power lines before it crashed about 10 miles south of Victorville in a remote area not far from Silverwood Lake. "Witnesses from northbound traffic on the I-15 freeway stated they saw something fall from the sky and then saw an explosion," Raney said.
The last fatal crash involving a Mercy Air flight was in August 2002, where three crew members died after leaving Nevada and crossing into California, said Craig Yale, vice president of corporate development for Air Methods Corp., the parent company for Mercy Air.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration were on the scene Sunday night.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the FAA initially was concerned that the helicopter had struck power lines, but Gregor said investigators had not found evidence of that by late Sunday. Rather, the Bell 412 helicopter crashed near the top of Cajon Pass at about 4,000 feet elevation during its repositioning flight from Loma Linda to Victorville.
According to Gregor, the helicopter was being operated under visual flight rules and not being handled by air traffic control.
The aircraft was operated by LifeNet, Inc., a subsidiary of Air Methods.
The helicopter was equipped with satellite tracking.
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