Search for medical transport plane that went missing off Maui presses on
3 crew members were headed to Hawaii island to pick up patient
Coast Guard crews are expected to continue searching Saturday for a medical transport plane that was carrying three crew members and lost radar contact about 15 nautical miles south of Hana on Thursday night.
Hawaii Life Flight’s Beechcraft King Air 90 lost radar contact around 9:27 p.m Thursday. It departed Kahului Airport and was headed to Waimea-Kohala Airport, said the Federal Aviation Administration and Global Medical Response, the operator of Hawaii Life Flight.
Because of the incident, Global Medical Response has halted its medical flight service in the state, with Gov. Josh Green, his cabinet, Mayor Michael Victorino and others working together “to ensure continuity and uninterrupted emergency transport services between the islands” with a primary focus on augmenting services to the Neighbor Islands, according to a news release from Green’s office on Friday.
There were no patients on board the twin-engine prop plane, which was headed over to Hawaii island to pick up a patient, according to the Governor’s Office and the Coast Guard, which had boats and aircraft involved in the search that began Thursday night.
The Coast Guard said Friday that it had located a debris field Thursday night about 16 miles south of Hana, in the area that the plane had lost radar contact and went missing. A Coast Guard patrol boat recovered the debris with no confirmation it was from the aircraft. A Coast Guard aircraft also reported seeing a sheen in the search area.
According to FAA records, the plane was manufactured in 2000 and is owned by Guardian Flight
LLC, whose parent organization is Global Medical Response.
The National Transportation Safety Board said via Twitter Friday that it is investigating the Thursday crash.
The patient who was supposed to be picked up on Hawaii island was not headed for Maui Memorial Medical Center, but somewhere else in the state, a hospital spokeswoman said.
There were no immediate details released on the plane’s crew.
Speedy Bailey, regional director for American Medical Response, part of Global Medical Response, said at a media availability Friday afternoon on Oahu: “I’d rather not share a lot of detail because those names haven’t been released, but they are part of our team of caregivers and I can speak for all the caregivers. They live this life, they know there’s risk involved, and usually you are taking care of other people when they are in need, so we are taking this moment to take a pause and take care of them.”
When asked about how long the “pause” would be, Bailey said, “I think it will be fully dependent on all factors that we are looking at and gauging and talking to our crews and looking at all of the information that we have with respect to reports, maintenance, make sure that when we say we are ready to fly, that we are air worthy, and people believe that.”
He said that Hawaii Life Flight had eight planes, so service on the remaining seven is on pause.
In a Facebook post Friday morning, Global Medical Response said it was notifying family members and asked that people not share any names until the company could reach the families.
“We are doing everything we can to bring our team members home and we will provide an update as soon as we have details,” the post
said. “We are asking everybody to please pray that we find them safely.”
Victorino also expressed his concern on Friday, issuing a statement saying, “On behalf of the people of Maui County, I extend my deepest concern and empathy for the loved ones of the three crew members as the search continues.”
Because of the temporary halt of air medical transport services, Green issued an emergency proclamation to help supplement the services. It will run through midnight Dec. 27.
Green and state Director of Health Dr. Elizabeth “Libby” Char said in a statement that the emergency proclamation gives the state “the ability to supplement Hawaii’s medical airlift capacity with aircraft and flight crews from other states and permits out-of-state actively licensed and certified emergency medical personnel to be employed as certified flight paramedics and registered nurses on medical transport aircrafts.”
Green said he, his cabinet, Hawaii Life Flight officials and the Army National Guard and Neighbor Island mayors, Coast Guard and representatives from medical facilities worked quickly Friday morning to ensure the public would have adequate medical services if needed and even some redundancy in services.
Green said the Army National Guard was providing Black Hawk helicopters to move medical personnel if they need to go to islands where patients need to be treated by specialists that may not be available in their hometowns.
The state has also spoken to Hawaii Emergency Physicians Associated regarding personnel willing to travel with medical flights during the pause.
And, between midnight Friday and 6 a.m. Saturday, Green was expecting aircraft from the West Coast and a medical team from the East Coast to arrive in Hawaii to temporarily take the place of Hawaii Life Flight.
Bailey also said that Maui medevac helicopter service also is prepared to handle any medical overload if needed.
Green said Hawaii Life Flight makes about 10 to 15 transfers a day and hoped that the transfers could be minimized to two or three a day, though he acknowledged that emergency incidents could still occur and require transport to Oahu.
However, someone on a Neighbor Island who may need special dialysis services on Oahu may be able to be treated instead by a physician coming to see them, for example.
The disappearance of the Hawaii Life Flight aircraft comes 16 years after a Hawaii Air Ambulance flight heading to Kahului Airport to pick up a patient crashed into the parking lot of the nearby BMW dealership, killing three people on March 6, 2006.
The dealership was closed at the time and no one was hurt on the ground, but three crew members died.
The crash ignited a large fire at the dealership and cut off vehicular access partially in the area along Hana Highway.