Second Crash In KS This Week

Three members of an air ambulance crew were killed early Tuesday when their twin-engine airplane crashed into a field near Dodge City (KS)

The Kansas Highway Patrol said it was the second fatal plane crash in the state this week. In the other accident, 60-year-old Carl Johnson of Pratt died Monday afternoon when a single-engine plane he was piloting crashed into a field in Pawnee County. Two other Kansans died Tuesday morning when their plane crashed four miles east of Rich Hill (MO), near the Missouri-Kansas state line.

Investigators said the EagleMedair ambulance crash occurred about 3 a.m. in a field three miles west of Dodge City.

The FAA said the plane, a 1968 Beech King Air 90, took off from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport and crashed short of its destination. Officials at Ballard Aviation in Wichita, which operates the service, said the crew was returning to Dodge City after delivering a patient to Wichita. Investigators said rescue personnel arriving at the scene quickly determined there were no survivors. It was EagleMed's first accident since the company was formed in 1982, and aviation safety officials said they couldn't remember another fatal air ambulance crash in Kansas. The King Air 90 was one of four King Airs used by EagleMed.

Killed were the pilot, Brandon Bow of Dallas, and medical crewmembers Jonathan Dye of Meade and Jennifer Hauptman of Coldwater. The company said Bow and Dye joined EagleMed in 2002, while Hauptman started working there last year. Bryan Owens, who lives near the crash scene, said he awoke to the sound of loud airplane engines, then heard a huge explosion that rocked the ground like an earthquake. After calling 911, he said, he ran to his truck and drove to the crash site. He said there was no sign of life.

"It was so still all you could hear was your heartbeat," he said.

Mike Klein, manager of the Dodge City Regional Airport, said the pilot probably had the airport in sight when the crash occurred.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating both Kansas crashes. As with any investigation, the FAA will look at issues including airworthiness, pilot competency and regulatory compliance.

The accident in Kansas was at least the second fatal crash of a fixed-wing air ambulance in the nation in the past three weeks, according to the NTSB. The other occurred Jan. 31 in Hawaii. Across the nation, there were 16 fatal and nonfatal air ambulance accidents in 2002, only two of which involved fixed-wing craft, Eileen Frazer, executive director of the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems, based in South Carolina to the Wichita Eagle. That entity -- a not-for-profit corporation that accredits air medical systems -- re-accredited EagleMed last year, Frazer said.

She said she could not comment on the specifics of EagleMed's compliance. The Association of Air Medical Services awarded EagleMed its Fixed Wing Safety Award in 2000. A typical patient transported aboard a medical aircraft would be someone bound for cardiac surgery or someone in a deteriorating condition several hours after an initial trauma, she said.

The NTSB's preliminary report read as follows:

IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: 777KU        Make/Model: BE90      Description: BEECH B90
  Date: 02/17/2004     Time: 0858
  Event Type: Accident   Highest Injury: Fatal     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Destroyed
LOCATION
  City: DODGE CITY                  State: KS   Country: US
DESCRIPTION
  EAGLEMED 4, N777KU, ACFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES IN A BACKYARD OF A HOME IN A RURAL AREA, THREE PERSONS ON BOARD WERE FATALLY INJURED, ACFT WAS DESTROYED, DODGE CITY, KS
INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   3
            # Crew:   1     Fat:   1     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
            # Pass:    2     Fat:   2     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
            # Grnd:          Fat:   0      Ser:   0      Min:   0     Unk:                                            
OTHER DATA
  Activity: Unknown      Phase: Unknown      Operation: General Aviation

  Departed: UNK                         Dep Date:    Dep. Time:     
  Destination: UNK                      Flt Plan: UNK          Wx Briefing: U
  Last Radio Cont: UNK
  Last Clearance: UNK
FAA FSDO: WICHITA, KS  (CE07)                   Entry date: 02/17/2004

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.flyeaglemed.com/