Authorities Investigate Deadly Hawaii Air Ambulance Crash
Hawaii Air Ambulance did not fly on Thursday after one of its planes crashed Wednesday night, killing three employees.
The company expressed shock and sadness over the second fatal crash in just two years.
One of HAA's twin-engine Cessna 414 was headed from Oahu to Kahului to pick up a patient for transport back to Honolulu. That's when the plane crashed into the lot of a BMW dealership near the Kahului Airport.
The crew has been identified as pilot Peter Miller, 32, of Kailua; Brien Eisaman, a 37-year-old registered nurse and assistant chief flight nurse, of Waipahu; and Marlena Yomes, 39, a paramedic and Honolulu base station supervisor, of Waianae. Read more about the crash.
Lorraine Osako and her children were at a nearby Starbucks.
"We just saw it coming in and it was losing ground it was just swaying back and forth. It was just freaky, you know," Osako said.
Another witness said he saw the plane flying about 250 feet above the business district. He said it sounded as though the plane was at full throttle and looked like it was gaining altitude. However, it then circled around coming in lower and finally tilting to the left just before impact.
"You just saw this big ball of explosion. It kind of looked like fireworks. I don't know if it was the gasoline. It was kind of scary," Osako said.
The charred and melted remains of the plane were all that was left as investigators inspected the wreckage on Thursday. One airplane wheel was visible. The luxury car dealership's lot looked more like a junkyard after the crash.
There were tears and prayers as friends gathered at the crash site, still in shock over the crash.
Hawaii Air Ambulance grounded its remaining four Cessna airplanes for psychological reasons, according to company officials. They said they didn't think it was a good idea to have crews fly and mechanics conducted safety checks on the remaining aircraft.
Hawaii Air Ambulance had owned the plane that crashed on Maui for two years. It was a replacement aircraft for an identical Cessna 414A that crashed on the Big Island on Jan. 31, 2004, killing a pilot and two paramedics. The National Transportation safety board could not determine the cause of that crash but ruled out pilot error and mechanical problems.
Wednesday night's crash is also a mystery at this time.
"The last communication we had was no indication of any problems was 7:11 (p.m.)," HAA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Kluger said. "They'd already seen the airfield to land. He would get back to Dr. Botham in a few minutes discussing the patient. We ceased contact with the plane and the plane went down between 7:11 and 7:15."
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator arrived on Maui to shift through the rubble and find out what happened in this deadly crash.
The company said remaining four planes are safe and reliable. The Cessna is considered a workhorse of the air ambulance industry, officials said.
The flight crews needed some time to cope psychologically.
"We're grieving. That is the proper word. It is an ohana (family) and we're saddened greatly. It has affected our crews as any family would having a loss," Chief Flight Nurse Anita Lucas-Legg said.
Patients need to be flown inter-island every day. So, the U.S. Coast Guard and other carriers are conducting flights while the company's Cessnas are grounded.
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