Medical plane apparently broke apart before Nevada crash that killed 5, NTSB says
STAGECOACH, Nev. — A medical transport flight that crashed in a mountainous area in northern Nevada, killing all five people aboard the plane, including a patient, apparently broke apart before hitting the ground, authorities said Sunday.
The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a seven-member team of investigators to the site of Friday night’s crash near Stagecoach, Nev.
“How do we know if the airplane broke up in flight? We found parts of the airplane one-half to three-quarters of a mile away” from the crash scene, NTSB Vice Chair Bruce Landsberg said at a news briefing in Carson City.
Landsberg said a team had spent all day looking for pieces of the downed plane. He added that investigators would likely be on site for several days before the wreckage of the single-engine Pilatus PC-12 is moved. The plane was built in 2002.
“Right now we just don’t know. This is like a three-dimensional puzzle,” Landsberg said. “It’s harder when you don’t have the pieces all in one place.”
The crash occurred amid a winter storm warning issued by the National Weather Service in Reno for large swaths of Nevada, including parts of Lyon County. It was snowing steadily at the time of the crash, with winds around 20 mph and gusts up to 30 mph.
The crash happened along Dog Bar Road near Colfax — a small city northeast of Sacramento — about 1:30 p.m., according to the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office.
Visibility was under two miles, with a cloud ceiling about 2,000 feet above ground, when the flight left Reno for Salt Lake City and went down, according to the weather service.
Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, identified the downed aircraft and said the pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member all died.
Robin Hays, a Stagecoach resident and a former flight nurse, said she heard the sputtering plane fly over her house before crashing behind her property.
“I knew the plane was in trouble,” Hays told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I knew it was going to crash. I was just hoping it wasn’t going to crash into my house.”
The crew of a train that derailed in Ohio received a warning about an overheated axle only just before the cars went off the tracks, the NTSB says.
Hays called 911 and went outside but could not see the wreckage because of the blowing snow.
Misty Gruenemay told the newspaper that the wind was howling and the snow blowing hard when she heard what sounded like a whiz and a thump behind her house in Stagecoach. The rural community about 45 miles southeast of Reno is home to around 2,500 people.
Gruenemay said she wanted to help, but conditions were terrible, and she didn’t have a vehicle that could safely travel the unpaved roads buried in half a foot of snow.
“It was snowing, and visibility was horrible. I don’t even understand why that plane was allowed to take off,” Gruenemay said.
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The Lyon County Sheriff’s office said authorities began receiving calls about the crash about 9:15 p.m. and found the wreckage two hours later.
Care Flight representatives said it was temporarily halting all flights.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane was registered to Guardian Flight, based in South Jordan, Utah. Care Flight is a service of REMSA Health in Reno and Guardian Flight.
More than half a million medical patients use air ambulance services each month in the U.S., according to the National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners website.
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