MADISON, Miss.–Although a preliminary report was released late last week on the medical helicopter crash that killed three people, including fight nurse Dustin Pope of Philadelphia, March 10, nothing further was revealed about the cause of the crash.
One of the reasons may be that a fire that burned for three hours after the chopper crashed near Madison, destroyed most of the wreckage.
The report from the National Transportation Safety Board stated that the flight nurse, who may have been Pope (the person was not named in the report), was the last person to use the radio, stating that the pilot was having trouble with the controls and that was corroborated by a witness on the ground.
That person, a manager at Turcotte Fish Hatchery, said the helicopter appeared to be out of control when it hit several trees and crashed among those trees while trying to land in a field.
“Shortly after the helicopter flew over the Pearl River State Wildlife Management Area, it began to descend. About halfway through the descent, the flight nurse transmitted over the radio to the UMMC MED-COM, “we’ve got a major problem, we are having an emergency landing in a field right now, ops are not good, controls are giving us a lot of trouble, coming in fast.” No further radio transmissions were recorded from the helicopter from either the UMMC MED COM or ATC,” said the report.
According to the report, Pope was seated in the rear, in a rear-facing seat, which was separated from the cockpit by a curtain.
Also killed in the crash were Jakob Kindt, 37, of Tupelo; and Cal Wesolowski, 62, of Starkville.
The witness said that what drew his attention to the helicopter was a loud boom which he heard inside his truck with the windows rolled up. When he first saw the helicopter it was still in the air.
Because all of the components were burned, none of them could be functionally tested.
Most of the data that is being analyzed by the NTSB is telemetry automatically received from the chopper.
The flight was considered low-risk and the machine had just been refueled before departing UMMC for the Golden Triangle Airport.
A final report on the crash could take a year or more.
