A medical transport flight carrying five people, including a patient, crashed in a mountainous region in northern Nevada on Friday night, killing everyone on board. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) dispatched a team of seven investigators to the crash site near Stagecoach.
According to Bruce Landsberg, the NTSB Vice Chair, the aircraft disintegrated before crashing. In a news briefing, he said that pieces of the plane were found between one-half and three-quarters of a mile away from the site.
The investigators spent the day looking for debris and said they would remain on site for several days before moving the wreckage of the single-engine Pilatus PC-12 to determine the possible cause of the crash. The plane was built in 2002.
The crash occurred during a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service for large areas of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County.
The weather service reported that visibility was under two miles with a cloud ceiling of about 2,000 feet above the ground when the flight left Reno for Salt Lake City, Utah.
Care Flight, which provides ambulance services by plane and helicopter, confirmed the identities of the victims: the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient, and a patient’s family member. The crash took place in a rural community of around 2,500 residents located about 45 miles southeast of Reno.
The Lyon County Sheriff’s office received calls about the crash at around 9:15 p.m. and found the wreckage two hours later. Care Flight suspended all flights and will work with its operations to determine when it will return to service. The plane was registered to Guardian Flight, based in South Jordan, Utah.
According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ website, over half a million medical patients use air ambulance services every month in the US.
»Medical transport flight crashes in mountainous region in northern Nevada«
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