Ann Arbor, Mich. – The patient lay on the operating table, prepped for transplant surgery. In the air over Lake Michigan, a twin-engine plane sped his way, carrying a team of surgeons and technicians, along with a donor organ on ice.
The plane never made it, crashing into the lake’s choppy waters and killing all six people aboard Monday.
Now the critically ill patient could become the accident’s seventh fatality.
“It was a very sad moment in the operating room” when word was received that the plane had gone down on its way from Milwaukee, said Dr. Jeffrey Punch, chief of transplant surgery at the University of Michigan Health System hospital in Ann Arbor.
Hospital officials and organ- donation authorities would not identify the transplant patient other than to say he was a man, and would not say what type of organ he was awaiting, citing medical privacy rules. But a family member of a victim on the flight said they were lungs.
He was put back on the donor waiting list was reported to be “very critically ill.”
The Cessna 550 Citation crashed about 5 p.m., shortly after takeoff on a flight to Ann Arbor that should have taken 42 minutes.
One of the pilots reported severe difficulty steering the plane because of trouble with its trim system, which controls bank and pitch, said National Transportation Safety Board investigator John Brannen.
Brannen said the pilot had signaled an emergency and was making a left turn and heading back to the Milwaukee airport when the plane went down.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. Brannen said the plane’s safety and maintenance records were not immediately available.
Killed were both pilots, two University of Michigan surgeons, and two technicians whose job was to prepare the organ for transplant.
“We now know our team is lost,” said Dr. Robert Kelch, chief executive of the University of Michigan Health System. “This is a tremendous blow to the institution, one from which we won’t quickly or easily recover.”
He added: “They died while trying to do what it is they do every day – helping someone else find hope.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, the donor organ, which was packed in ice in a cooler, had not been found. Lungs can last outside the body for only eight hours, said Dr. Tony D’Alessandro, executive director of University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinic Organ Procurement Organization.
The team included two veterans, cardiac surgeon Dr. Martinus “Martin” Spoor and transplant donation specialist Richard Chenault II, who had flown dozens of such missions.
Also on the team was Dr. David Ashburn, a 35-year-old physician-in-training in pediatric cardiothoracic surgery, and another transplant donation specialist, Richard LaPensee.
Their plane took off as light rain fell with winds at 12 mph, gusting to 22 mph. At the controls were Dennis Hoyes and Bill Serra, two pilots who worked for Marlin Air Inc., the university’s jet-service contractor.
The plane hit the water at about 190 mph, authorities said. By midday Tuesday, only small parts of the aircraft – including pilot seats and small pieces of the cockpit – had been found, the Coast Guard said. Divers searched in water as deep as 50 feet.
The operating room at Ann Arbor was immediately notified that the plane had gone down, and the surgeons stopped the operation on the transplant patient more than two hours after it had started, hospital officials said.
Hospital officials would not disclose how far along the surgery was, but said that typically they do not remove the transplant recipient’s old organ until they have a replacement in hand.
A recent NTSB study found that accidents involving emergency medical services flights – those carrying patients or organs for transplant – have been increasing. Between January 2002 and January 2005 there were 55 such accidents and 54 deaths.
“Every day, the doctors, nurses and flight personnel of Survival Flight do heroic work in saving the lives of others, and that is how we will remember those who perished in Monday’s tragedy – as selfless heroes,” University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman said.
Chenault received the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services distinguished Medal of Honor last year for his efforts to increase organ donation.
Darrell Campbell, the university health system’s chief of staff. said Chenault was skilled at comforting families who had lost loved ones and were preparing to donate their organs.
“Now we’re left to do the same thing with his family,” Campbell said.
The Detroit News and New York Times contributed to this report.
