A medical helicopter responding to a logging accident crashed Thursday afternoon near the small southwestern Colorado town of Mancos, killing all three aboard.
The Tri-State CareFlight helicopter carrying a pilot, nurse and paramedic crashed about 2 p.m., shortly after leaving Mercy Medical Center in Durango, officials confirmed.
“Everybody here is shocked and saddened, and our prayers go out to the families of the crew members and their friends,” hospital spokesman David Bruzzese said. “This is a tragic situation.”
Bruzzese said that he could not reveal who was on board and that officials at the hospital did not have any details.
“This is a very small community, a very tightknit community – not only Durango, but particularly the health care and emergency services and emergency-response community, and many of our employees work closely with the Tri-State people,” he said.
Firefighters at the scene of the logging accident, 8 to 9 miles east of Mancos at about 9,000 feet, watched the helicopter fly toward them, then disappear, said Montezuma County Sheriff Gerald Wallace.
They found the wreckage of the aircraft in a small clearing, about 300 feet by 300 feet, surrounded by aspen. All three on board died on impact, Wallace said.
He said the bodies were extricated from the helicopter and taken by the county coroner.
Autopsies will be performed today, Wallace said.
The names of the victims will be released this morning, he added.
The same helicopter earlier had flown to Berg Park near Farmington, N.M., where a 15-year-old Boy Scout drowned in the Animas River after falling out of a raft.
A woman who answered the phone at Tri-State’s headquarters in Bullhead City, Ariz., declined to comment, as did crew members at the helicopter’s base.
The helicopter, an Agusta A119 Koala, had been based at the hospital since last July, after two years of planning and crew training.
“The crew and patient safety are our No. 1 priority,” project manager Paul Gibson told The Durango Herald at the time.
Built by an Italian company in Philadelphia, the A119 is a relatively new helicopter, first going into production in 1999 and costing about $1.7 million each.
The particular helicopter that crashed was built in 2000, according to Allen Kenitzer, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
An identical helicopter crashed in California last July after a sudden decrease in the main rotor speed, according to the pilot. None of the seven people aboard were injured.
In 2002, three accidents involving the same model were reported.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
