Posted: 3/25/2010 10:52:20 AM EDT
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I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but I thought that it would be appropriate for the TN HTF.
Short on details right now but, Hospital Wing (air medical helicopter) based in Brownsville crashed this AM near Dyersburg. From what I've been told by my fellow EMS personnel there were 3 crew on board ( pilot and 2 nurses) no pt. no survivors. No names released as of yet, but I'm sure their families could use our prayers whomever they may be. MIKE 
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BROWNSVILLE, Tenn. — A medical helicopter crashed in western Tennessee early today and state officials confirmed three crew members were killed.
Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jeremy Heidt in Nashville said the medical flight crashed into a field shortly after 6 a.m. during a rainstorm near Brownsville. Heidt said the helicopter had flown a patient from Parsons to a Jackson hospital and was returning to its base in Brownsville when it went down only a few miles from its destination. All those aboard were crew members. "The pilot was not in contact with air traffic controllers at the time of the crash and there had been no indication of problems," said Lynn Lunsford, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration in Fort Worth, Texas. Lunsford said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating. "They (investigators) will look at everything from the aircraft to the weather," Lunsford said. "As the NTSB says, 'man, machine and environment.'" The crash scene is near U.S. 70 and about 55 miles northeast of Memphis. Rich Okulski, a supervisor in the Memphis office of the National Weather Service, said the agency doesn't have an observer in Brownsville, but said his office has submitted a report to NWS officials that weather could have played a role in the crash. Okulski said at the time of the crash, a thunderstorm was in progress at McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport in Jackson, about 25 miles east of Brownsville and a line of thunderstorms had cleared Memphis, about 55 miles southwest. Heidt said the National Transportation Safety Board has an investigative team from its regional office in Atlanta headed to the site to look into the crash details. Heidt said weather will “definitely be something to look at” in trying to determine the cause of the early morning crash. “It’s a tragedy that all three people lost their lives,” Heidt said. A photograph from the scene by WNWS radio in Jackson shows charred wreckage of the craft in what was described as a wheat field. Seventy-year-old Ella Mae Clark, who lives nearby, said she heard a "whoomp, whoomp, whoomp" sound followed by a loud noise a little before sunup. "The house kind of shook," Clark said. "It felt like thunder." Hospital Wing, the company that flies the medical airlifts, confirmed that the crash was one of its medical helicopters and that no patients were aboard the flight. “Nothing like this has ever happened in our history,” said Allen Burnette, Hospital Wing program director and chief operating officer. The air ambulance service is now notifying all its employees and having them meet at the Memphis base, said flight nurse Barbara Wells, of Millington. “I just know there were no survivors. That's the base I fly out of,” she said tearfully, referring to Brownsville. Hospital Wing was founded in 1985 and is a non-profit air medical transport service. It is jointly owned and operated by Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Baptist Memorial Hospital, the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, St. Francis Hospital-Memphis and Crittenden Memorial Hospital in West Memphis, Ark. Hospital Wing indefinitely suspended all flight operations today following the crash, the first in the 24-year history of the not-for-profit helicopter ambulance service. “We’ve suffered a tragic loss here at Hospital Wing… We need to get through this investigation and the mourning process,” said Jamie Carter, board member for Hospital Wing and president and CEO of Crittenden Regional Hospital in West Memphis. The company's Web site says it flies the Eurocopter Astar AS350B3 model, which is capable of carrying a three-person crew and one patient. Hospital Wing has three bases. The one in Brownsville opened in 2004 serving 26 counties in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, the Web site says. Carter identified the victims as pilot Doug Phillips, 58, and flight nurses Cindy Parker, 48, and Misty Brogdan, 36. Carter had no information on the victims’ places of residence but said he believed they were from the Brownsville area. Hospital Wing, headquartered on Eastmoreland in Memphis, is owned by Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Baptist Memorial Hospital, Regional Medical Center at Memphis, St. Francis Hospital and Crittenden Regional Hospital. It has 45 employees and has operated three helicopters out of Memphis, and one each in branches in Brownsville and Oxford, Miss. Carter said Hospital Wing’s pilots have an average of 26 years’ experience and have undergone extensive training. Before today, the company had conducted more than 49,000 accident-free missions, earning numerous safety awards. But Hospital Wing has faced safety questions before. In May 1987, its helicopters were grounded for a week after one experienced engine failure en route to a training program in Oxford. The cause of the problem was a turbine blade that had come loose from the engine. Subsequent checks showed cracks in the turbine blades of two other aircraft. LINK |