ABC-7 researches fueling safety following NTSB crash report

An initial report from the National Transportation Safety Board says the wrong aircraft fuel was pumped into the doomed medical transport plane headed from Las cruces to Phoenix on Aug. 27.

Nearly two weeks ago, 29-year-old Elite Medical Transport pilot Freddy Martinez asked a Southwest Aviation service line technician to add 40 gallons of fuel to the Cessna 421C. NTSB investigators released a preliminary investigation report that said Jet A fuel was added instead of 100LL aviation gasoline, and those in the plane knew something was wrong very shortly after takeoff.

Southwest Aviation in Las Cruces fueled the plane before the flight. They weren’t commenting on Tuesday. ABC-7 spoke to a manager with a different, unrelated company, who’s been around aircraft for more than 30 years. Scott Andre said what happened to three of his friends, should have been impossible.

“These guys were based with us. They were our customers. We saw them on a daily basis … They left and never came back,” Andre said.

Multiple safety checks ought to prevent an incident like the one outside of Las Cruces late last month. Andre said it starts with training before operating any of the equipment plus practical and written tests.

There are multiple layers of safety when fueling aircraft. For one, the fuel trucks have labels on them to tell a technician what type of fuel is inside. There are procedural safety measures, and also different types of nozzles for different fuel for different aircraft. Another visible safety measure is the fuel ticket itself. Blue for what’s called Avgas, yellow for Jet A fuel.

“It should not have happened. If even half of these procedures had been followed then this could not have happened,” Andre said. He and his crew at Cutter Aviation understand how important their jobs are.

“We hold this very close to our hearts. We know in our business there’s a couple way we can hurt families and this is one of them. So we train our staff, and we have really strict standards to make sure this (a crash) doesn’t happen again,” Andre said.

The problem was evident immediately after takeoff. The NTSB report said a medical crew member on the plane called a medical dispatcher to report they were returning to the Las Cruces Airport because the right engine was smoking.

ABC-7 reached out to Elite Medical Transport for comment about the findings. In an e-mailed response, its president said, “We are aware of the report and the cause of the accident. We continue to focus our efforts on supporting the families.”