Roswell, N.M. – Friends and family gathered in this southeastern New Mexico community Thursday to remember three crew members of a medical plane that crashed while flying a mother and her ill 15-month-old daughter to a hospital in Albuquerque.
Hundreds turned out at the Church on the Move to honor pilot Ricky Byers of Ruidoso, flight nurse Brian Miller of Roswell and paramedic Deanna Palmer of Prescott, Ariz., all of whom worked for Southwest Medevac, and their passengers, Tracy Smith, 41, of Ruidoso, and her daughter, Lily.
Four pictures – one each of the crew members and the fourth of Smith and her baby – decorated the altar.
“They will be flying with us, our three angels and the wings of three angels,” said Sabrina Henry, a co-worker of the Southwest Medevac crew members.
Federal investigators are trying to determine what happened in the moments after the medical plane left Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso and before it crashed Sunday into a hillside just miles away.
Eli Brown, another Southwest Medevac co-worker, said Byers “treated everybody as if they were his own. We always ate great.”
Donny E. Elkins, who knew Miller for 25 years, recalled that after Miller was seriously injured in a motorcycle crash, he decided he was going to earn a nursing degree and become an emergency room nurse. Miller, who could hardly move and was in a lot of pain after the wreck, also decided he would ride motorcycles again, Elkins said.
Miller accomplished those goals, his friend said.
Tracy Smith’s sister-in-law, Lisa Smith, told the crowd that the family had respect for the medical crew members.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the plane took off to the east and instead of turning left to fly north to Albuquerque, turned right and crashed almost immediately in the Lincoln National Forest.
