Pilot cited in Hospital Wing crash
Error ‘causal role’ in accident, NTSB says
WASHINGTON — Air ambulance pilot William D. Phillips’ “risky decision” to attempt to outrun an approaching thunderstorm was the probable cause of the fatal crash in Brownsville, Tenn., 22 months ago, the National Transportation Safety Board ruled Friday.
Phillips was nearing the end of a 12-hour shift when the crash occurred. The longawaited findings say fatigue may have been a contributing factor to his error in judgment. The helicopter flew into the “gust front” of an approaching thunderstorm, an area “prone to extreme low-level wind shear,” the NTSB said.
“Based on these conditions, the helicopter likely encountered severe turbulence from which there was no possibility of recovery, particularly at low level,” it said. “No evidence existed of a lightning strike at the time of the accident.”
The crash killed Phillips, a retired police officer from Bartlett, 58, and nurses Cynthia A. Parker, 48, of Dyersburg and Misty L. Brogdon, 36, of Jackson. Their Memphis Medical Center Air Ambulance Service flight had just transported a patient from Parsons to the Jackson-madison County Hospital. All three were aware of the severe weather in front of them.
Documents released last September indicated weather would be a factor in the crash. Friday’s report added the pilot’s poor decision-making.
“The pilot made a risky decision to attempt to outrun the storm in night conditions which would enable him to return the helicopter to its home base and end his shift there, rather than choosing the safer alternative of parking the helicopter in a secure area and exploring alternate transportation arrangements or waiting for the storm to pass and returning to base after sunrise when conditions improved,” the report said.
“This decision-making error played an important causal role in this accident,” the report said.
The March 25, 2010, incident was the fourth air ambulance accident in a sixmonth period and followed 2009 hearings by the NTSB that looked at nine fatal air ambulance crashes that killed 35 people in an earlier 12month period.
Friday’s Brownsville findings were released along with the probable cause of a September 2009 air ambu- lance crash in Georgetown, S.C., for which the NTSB also blamed the pilot’s poor judgment in flying into heavy rain.
The Brownsville crash occurred just before dawn, a period the NTSB said “can be associated with degraded alertness.” But the report said the NTSB was “unable to determine whether or to what degree fatigue contributed to the pilot’s faulty decision to attempt to outrun the storm.”
A message left seeking comment from Hospital Wing in Memphis was not immediately returned.
Barbara Wells, a nurse for 37 years with 24 at Hospital Wing, said Friday she quit because of the crash and because of changes in the industry that have led to “cutthroat” competition for billable patients.
“The whole industry needs to be safer,” Wells said. — Bartholomew S ullivan:
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