A pilot, a patient and their loved one were among five people killed on Friday when a CareFlight crashed near Stagecoach, Nevada, according to authorities.
The fixed-wing aircraft went off radar at 9.45pm, according to REMSA Health and Guardian Flight, which operates Care Flight. The air ambulance service “covers approximately 50,000 square miles of California and Nevada, and 11 states across the western United States,” according to the REMSA website. The fleet has five bases, four helicopters, one airplane and one Critical Care Ground Transport, the site says.
“We are heartbroken to report that we have now received confirmation from Central Lyon County Fire Department that none of the five people on board survived,” the company wrote in a statement on Facebook. “The five people on board were a pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member. We are in the process of notifying their family members.”
The crash involved a PC-12 fixed wing aircraft, tail number N273SM, according to REMSA Health. Stagecoach is about 45 miles southeast of Reno.
The Central Lyon Fire Department and Lyon County Sheriff’s Department were coordinating Saturday with the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the cause of the crash. A seven-member NTSB team was expected to arrive in Nevada by Saturday night, the agency tweeted.
The names of the victims were not immediately released, and Care Flight journeys were temporarily suspended.
“As is Guardian and Care Flight’s safety process in these situations, we are in a passive stand down for all Guardian and Care Flight flights across the company,” the REMSA Health statement continued. “We will work with each of our operations to ascertain when they are able to return to services.”
