DISTRICT HEIGHTS, Md. — The pilot of a medical helicopter twice radioed for help in foggy weather before crashing Sunday, killing four of the five people on board in the latest of a growing number of air-ambulance accidents, authorities said.
The medical helicopter was carrying victims of a traffic accident when it went down in a suburban Washington park. It was the deadliest medevac helicopter accident in Maryland since the State Police began flying those missions nearly 40 years ago, and the eighth fatal medical-helicopter crash in the last 12 months nationwide. About 30 people have died in such crashes during that period, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman said.
On Sunday, a veteran pilot, a flight paramedic, a county emergency medical technician and one of the traffic-accident victims died in the crash, authorities said.
An 18-year-old woman also injured in the traffic accident in Charles County survived the helicopter crash. She was in critical condition at a hospital.
The helicopter was on a roughly 25-mile trip from the traffic accident to a hospital when the aircraft radioed late Saturday that it would land at Andrews Air Force Base instead because conditions were “not favorable” at the hospital.
As they approached, the pilot radioed that he was having trouble assessing his surroundings. At 11:55 p.m., he again asked for assistance with the landing, and that was the last that air-traffic controllers heard from him, Hersman said.
The chopper crashed about midnight, 3 miles from the base, Hersman said. An earlier NTSB news release had incorrectly placed the time of the crash at 1:15 a.m.
The NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the cause of the crash.
A federal investigation in 2006 found there were 55 air-ambulance accidents from 2002 to 2005, prompting the safety board to issue four recommendations, including higher standards for medical aircraft and more stringent decision-making in determining whether to fly in bad weather.
Officials said the helicopter was cleared to fly by Andrews Air Force Base.
