AK AK - 3 people, aboard missing medevac aircraft en route to Kake, Anchorage, 29 Jan 2019

[gliving]

Guardian Flight
3 hrs


Updating our communications from earlier this morning, Guardian Flight’s underwater search team has now located most of the aircraft pieces, including the fragmented fuselage and tail assembly. The second engine and landing gear have been identified as have propeller blades and other wing fragments.

We are committed to continuing the search for our beloved friends who were aboard the aircraft. The onsite team estimates it has found 85-90 % of the aircraft dispersed over a large debris field. We plan to recover major fragments of the aircraft that could be useful in the NTSB’s investigation and continue to search the debris field and other painted sonar targets. The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) is in the possession of the NTSB and being preserved for analysis.

The families of our beloved crew members have been notified of these latest developments. We are hopeful that we will be able to recover their loved ones to aid them and the entire Guardian Flight team in grieving this tremendous loss.

Randy Lyman, Guardian Flight
1:59 CT 03-19-19 Update

 

[gliving]

While we are planning a helicopter search of the shoreline for any aircraft fragments that may have washed up recently, Guardian Flight’s two-month search for our beloved crew members, the company’s aircraft and its cockpit voice recorder in waters off the coast of Alaska is coming to an end after exhausting all avenues of exploration and recovery. Unfortunately, the detailed and methodical search has not yet revealed any of the remains of our friends aboard the aircraft when it crashed. This is very disappointing to their families and our entire Guardian Flight team and extended family of first responders, air medical transporters and health care professionals.

We were successful in locating and recovering the airplane’s Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), which has been transported to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) headquarters in Washington, D.C. for further analysis. We are thankful for the assistance rendered over the past two months by the NTSB’s regional office in Anchorage during trying times and despite difficult weather conditions during our search and recovery efforts.

Guardian Flight has also been able to locate and recover significant portions of the aircraft during this process. We have identified and raised from the ocean depths a number of fragmented major assemblies of the aircraft, including the cockpit, fuselage, tail, engines, propeller blades, wing sections, and landing gears. These will be transported to Juneau for further analysis by the NTSB.

We thank everyone who has helped in our search following the loss, including many good Samaritans, the U.S. Coast Guard, the NTSB, Alaska State Troopers, local law enforcement, and our dedicated search team. We have searched 7 square miles of ocean and ocean floor and traversed over 700 linear miles by ship to locate our cherished friends, the CVR and aircraft. Further, we have engaged Metron Scientific Solutions, experts in underwater search and recovery efforts, to aid us in the evaluation of our search to date. Our search team and the professionals in such efforts have concluded that we have exhausted all our remaining options in our underwater search and recovery efforts.

This is a very sad time for us and our team, the families of our friends who died in this tragedy, and for everyone associated with flying patients in need of a higher level of care. Please reflect on the lives taken and pray for those lost at sea and everyone impacted by this heartbreak. We will be planning a memorial to recognize and celebrate the lives of our departed friends in Juneau in the next few months.

Randy Lyman, Guardian Flight

Guardian Flight Alaska | Guardian Flight Alaska

 

[GraceG]

I'm glad they have enough to piece together what happened but sorry the family won't have closure with remains found. That makes it likely it was a high-speed impact (loss of control) as opposed to a stall at a low airspeed. Prayers for the family.

 

[gliving]

Clint Johnson, the NTSB’s Alaska chief, said Monday that the plane was salvaged from deep water after a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) secured straps to the fuselage, allowing a crane to raise it. The investigator assigned to the crash, Brice Banning, was present during the recovery mission funded by Guardian Flight and its insurers.


“The depth is right around 500 feet,” Johnson said. “At those depths, everything had to be done with a ROV.”


Although the recovered parts include much of the Beech’s fuselage and tail, as well as its engines and most of their propeller blades, Johnson said no remains of the plane’s occupants were found.

‘This will be it’: NTSB recounts recovery of crashed Guardian Flight plane

 

[lindamichelle1]

‘Frustrating’ investigation into fatal 2019 medevac crash ends with no clear answers

A final report released Jan. 28 by the National Transportation Safety Board says there isn’t enough evidence to explain how or why a twin-engine medevac plane plummeted from 2500 feet in just 14 seconds in 2019.

alaskapublic.org

‘Frustrating’ investigation into fatal 2019 medevac crash ends with no clear answers​

Federal aviation safety investigators have closed the book on the Guardian Flight crash that killed three crew members.

The twin-engine medevac plane was en route to the Southeast village of Kake to pick up a patient the evening of Jan. 29, 2019. During its approach over Frederick Sound, the turboprop veered to the right and plummeted 2,575 feet in just 14 seconds.

A final report released Jan. 28 by the National Transportation Safety Board said there isn’t enough evidence to explain how or why.

Most of the wreckage of the King Air 200 was recovered in about 500 feet of water. The bodies of the Juneau-based crew members were never found despite extensive effort by the U.S. Coast Guard and private contractors.

He says there was initial hope after the cockpit voice recorder was found. But a forensics lab determined the recorder hadn’t worked since 2015.

 

[lindamichelle1]

Guardian Flight settles over deadly 2019 medevac crash

A Utah-based medevac company has settled a wrongful death lawsuit over a 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska that killed three crew members from Juneau.

alaskapublic.org

A Utah-based medevac company has settled a wrongful death lawsuit over a 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska that killed three crew members from Juneau.