Early speculation that Sunday’s crash in the Cajon Pass that killed three was caused by the airship hitting power lines has been ruled out.
By Jonathan Abrams and Maeve Reston
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
All Rights Reserved
The nation’s largest air medevac company grounded most of its Southern California helicopters a day after one of its rescue helicopters crashed near the summit of Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County, giving its personnel time to grieve for the deaths of three crew members, officials said Monday.
The Mercy Air Service Inc. helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded peak south of Hesperia shortly after sundown Sunday. It had been returning to its base in Victorville after flying a woman injured in a horse-riding accident in Phelan to Loma Linda University Medical Center, authorities said.
Federal transportation officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation and ruled out early speculation that the helicopter struck power lines.
A spokesman for Mercy Air, San Bernardino County’s sole airambulance service provider, said that although the company groundedmany of its 15 helicopters in the region Monday, some crews wereavailable to respond to emergencies.
“It’s obviously a great loss of really good people,” said CraigYale, vice president of corporate development for Colorado-based AirMethods Corp., the parent company of the emergency helicopter unit."We’ll go ahead and regroup and continue to serve the area.”
This year, the National Transportation Safety Board called forstricter safety standards in the medical aviation transport fieldafter an agency study documented an alarming rise in accidents, manyof them fatal.
The study noted that of 55 accidents from 2002 and 2005, 35occurred when no patient was aboard -- most often when the aircraftwas returning to its base. The report called on the FAA to change itsflight restrictions during inclement weather, which are lessstringent when medical service flights are flying without a patientaboard.
Mercy Air, which has units in Anaheim, Victorville, Rialto, ElCajon and Carlsbad, already requires its pilots to use the stricterstandards suggested by the NTSB, Yale said.
“It’s why our accident rate is lower than the average,” he said."We do not change our standards. We have already been doing what theNTSB is recommending.”
On Monday, Mercy Air released the names of the crew memberskilled: Pilot Paul G. Latour, 46, of Apple Valley; nurse Katrina J.Kish, 42, of Moreno Valley; and paramedic Jerald W. Miller, 40, ofApple Valley.
Latour had 18 years of experience and 3,000 hours of flying time,Yale said. He was employed with Mercy for a little over a year.
Willis Whitlock, who said he lived across the street from Latourfor roughly a decade, described him as a former Army helicopter pilotwho spent much of his career at Ft. Irwin.
Latour spent his free time tinkering with cars or taking hisfamily off-roading in the desert, Whitlock said. Latour’s daughterwas married Friday.
“He was a real man’s man.... He was always doing something,"Whitlock said, noting that Latour had taken a side job as a tow truckdriver just so he would have another excuse to work on cars.
Rick Throckmorton, a pilot who used to fly Mercy Air helicoptersin Oxnard, said his colleagues were grieving over the death ofMiller, who worked for the company for just under two years.Throckmorton said few paramedics could match Miller’s skills,especially with putting children at ease.
“When you pick up the kids, you throw them in the helicopter --they’re sick, they’re injured they’re scared and often their parentscan’t fly with them,” Throckmorton said. “He could relate to them, hecould calm them down. Just the way he talked to them, looked at them,touched them.”
Kish worked with Mercy for almost seven years. Efforts to contacther family and friends were unsuccessful.
Mercy employees and family members of the crew gathered near thecrash scene Monday.
“It’s been a long day,” said Wayne Richardson, an aviationdirector for Mercy Air. “We are a tight-knit group, and this is likelosing a family member.”
A dense fog blanketed the area at the time of the crash, butauthorities cautioned against blaming the weather prematurely.
The crew had taken the same route earlier Sunday and avoided thefoggy area without complications, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman forthe Federal Aviation Administration. “Obviously, earlier in the daythey had flown around and avoided the fog,” Gregor said. “We aregoing to look at the big three to hopefully find out what the causewas: man, machine and environment.”
The helicopter flew under visual flight rules and was not handledby air traffic control. Pilots use visual flight when the weather isgood enough to allow them to safely control the aircraft’s altitudeand maintain safe separation from obstacles such as rugged terrain orbuildings, Gregor said.
“The fact that it was foggy where the accident occurred does notindicate that VFR was inappropriate,” he said.
Investigators from the FAA, National Transportation Safety Boardand the San Bernardino County sheriff’s and fire departments willtake part in the investigation, Gregor said.