NTSB: Fatigue Among Causes Of ’04 Air Ambulance Crash
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Federal investigators say a tired flight crew and a lack of information from flight controllers contributed to the October 2004 crash of an Albuquerque-based air ambulance in California that killed five people.
The Learjet 35A from Med Flight Air Ambulance Inc. that crashed was thousands of feet too low to clear the mountain it struck, the National Transportation Safety Board said.
The board, in a report issued late last month, said the air traffic controller failed to give the crew instructions about clearing the terrain or advising the crew of the minimum safe altitude during the nighttime flight.
The board said the pilots’ fatigue contributed to the crash. The pilot had been awake about 17.5 hours and the co-pilot had been awake about 16 hours and both had been on duty about 11 hours, the NTSB said.
Although their duty and rest times were in compliance with flight rules, the flight left about three hours past the crew’s normal bedtime at the end of a long day on duty, the board said.
Killed in the Oct. 24, 2004 crash near the Mexican border were pilot Karl A. Kolb, 56; co-pilot K. John Lamphere, 30; nurse Laura A. Womble, 47, and her paramedic husband, Donald, 45, all of Albuquerque; and paramedic Marco E. Villalobos, 33, of El Paso, Texas.
The Learjet stuck Otay Mountain shortly after taking off from Brown Field in clear weather. The crew was returning to Albuquerque after picking up a patient on a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico and dropping the patient off in San Diego.
The plane was one minute into the flight when radio contact was lost.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) AP-NY-06-05-06 1638EDT
