Three people on board a medical transport helicopter lost their lives when the aircraft crashed in Mississippi on Monday, officials said.
The helicopter was returning to Columbus from a patient transport in Jackson when it crashed in rural Madison County at around 12:30 pm, killing everyone on board, said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s (UMMC) vice chancellor for health affairs, at a press conference Monday evening.
“The entire Medical Center family is heartbroken over this,” Woodward said. “We also want to express our concern and sadness and support for the AirCare and Mississippi Center for Emergency Services team.”
The UMMC has released the names of the victims: 35-year-old Dustin Pope of Philadelphia and 37-year-old Jakob Kindt from Tupelo, both hospital workers. The pilot flying the aircraft was 62-year-old Cal Wesolowski of Starkville.
Med-Trans, the company that owns and operates the helicopter, also offered its condolences.
The helicopter company said that the aircraft—an Airbus EC-135P2plus—lost contact with its communications center around 12:35 p.m. The company provided no further details of the events or communications before the crash.
This was the first crash in the 29 years that the AirCare services—the medical emergency transport collaboration between the UMMC and Med-Trans—have been operational, the university said.
AirCare services have been temporarily halted. The UMMC said it was working with health care and medical transportation services around the state for continued availability of emergency air transport.
Neither Med-Trans nor the UMMC offered a reason for the crash but said the accident was under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
“It’s a tragic reminder of the risks Mississippi’s first responders take every day to keep us safe,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said on Facebook. “Our state will never forget the sacrifice of these heroes.”
