EagleMed's Aircraft Model Has History of Crashes Across the Country

Several documents from the National Transportation Safety Board revealed Thursday&#39;s fatal crash of an AS-350 medical helicopter in a Kingfisher County field was not the first time that particular model has had issues. Documents showed that other AS-350 have gone down 58 times in the last five years. <br /><br /><strong>More: </strong><a href="http://www.news9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12858737">Officials Look at &#39;Man, Machine, Environment&#39; to Determine Cause of EagleMed Crash</a>

Saturday, July 24th 2010, 1:36 am

By: News 9


By Rusty Surette, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Several documents from the National Transportation Safety Board revealed Thursday's fatal crash of an AS-350 medical helicopter in a Kingfisher County field was not the first time that particular model has had issues. Documents showed that other AS-350 have gone down 58 times in the last five years.

On Thursday an EagleMed helicopter crashed in a field near Okarche. Two people were killed, while another was seriously injured.

The aircraft was a 1998 Eurocopter AS-350. A model well documented by the NTSB.

In 2008 in Phoenix Arizona, the exact same model helicopter belonging to Air Evac crashed while responding to an accident scene.

In Brownsville, Tennessee this year, an AS-350 crashed. On board were a pilot and two nurses who were all killed in the crash.

In fact, accident records from the National Transportation Safety Board showed the AS-350 model has crashed nearly 60 times since 2005. Most of the accidents are due to pilot error, but there were others that point to mechanical error as the cause of the crash.

"If it's something to do with an industry, we try to correct what we can correct," said Jason Aguilera, NTSB investigator.

The lead investigator of Thursday's crash in Kingfisher County said the NTSB works closely with the FAA to determine if there's a safety issue that needs to be addressed with certain aircrafts or the industry as a whole.

"If we start to identify a trend, then that's when we start issuing safety recommendations, and if we find a problem, then we can address those problems,' Aguilera said.

Investigators won't comment specifically on the history of the AS-350s, nor will they comment on a source that told NEWS 9 something that came off the chopper's door in mid-flight and hit the rotator may have been the reason why EagleMed 7 went down.

While the AS-350s have a history of crashes, EagleMed does not. In fact, in its 30-year history, the company has only had two accidents.

The NTSB is expected to release a preliminary report into EagleMed's crash sometime next week. Investigators said the plan to soon speak with the medic who survived the accident.

A fund has been set up for the crash victims. The EagleMed918 Crew fund is set up at Commerce Bank and the fund is also linked on EagleMed's Web site as well.

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