Five people killed in Care Flight air ambulance crash in Nevada
Five people – including a patient, a relative of the patient and medical personnel – were killed in a plane crash Friday in Nevada, according to an air ambulance company.
The sheriff’s office in Lyon county said it began receiving calls about a possible plane crash near the community of Stagecoach – about 25 miles south-east of Reno – about 9.15pm and found the wreckage two hours later.
Care Flight, which provides ambulance service by plane and helicopter, confirmed that the crashed aircraft belonged to them and that there were no survivors. The five people on board who were killed were a pilot, a flight nurse, a flight paramedic, a patient and a patient’s family member.
The identities of those who died weren’t immediately released as Care Flight worked to notify their families.
“We are heartbroken,” the company said in a statement.
Care Flight also said it was halting flights while it focused on helping responding agencies, team members and families.
The deadly Care Flight crash on Friday night was the second US plane wreck in two days that left five passengers dead.
On Wednesday, executives with an Arkansas-based environmental consulting firm died shortly after their plane took off from Little Rock. The group was headed to a metals plant near Cleveland, Ohio, where an explosion killed one employee and injured more than a dozen others.
Those killed in the Arkansas plane crash worked for CTEH, and they were identified as pilot Sean Sweeney as well as passengers Micah Kendrick, Kyle Bennett, Gunter Beaty and Glenmarkus Walker, according to the local news outlet KARK.
Federal aviation and transportation officials are investigating the circumstances of both the Care Flight and CTEH crashes. Such investigations can typically take a year or more to complete.