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Read preliminary report from NTSB

Listen to audio from night of crash

Watch report by 9NEWS NOW reporter Bruce Leshan

UPDATE: Reads state official's reaction to comments by SYSCOM dispatcher

(AP contributed to this report)

A preliminary report issued Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board details the timeline of a medical helicopter crash in Maryland that killed four people but does not determine the cause. Audio of phone and radio communications between Maryland's dispatch center for the helicopters (SYSCOM), the helicopter crew and various other agencies has also been released.

In the recordings, pilot Steven Bunker is heard discussing the weather conditions with SYSCOM and deciding whether to take the flight to Waldorf. Bunker discusses there is only an 800 foot ceiling at C0llege Park Airport that may not allow them to land at Prince George's County Hospital Center, about a mile away. The pilot makes note the MedStar helicopter recently landed at MedStar in the District of Columbia and said, "If they can do it we can do it". Bunker added, "We can give it a shot".

The SYSCOM dispatcher also makes the remark that when he heard the mission was for Charles County, Maryland, "I knew it was going to be Waldorf because those guys never want to drive to the hospital".

The Sept. 28 crash in District Heights, Md., was the worst in the 40 years that Maryland State Police have been operating medical evacuation flights.

Nationwide, it was the eighth fatal medical helicopter crash in the last 12 months.

Four of the five on board -- including a veteran pilot, a flight paramedic, an emergency medical technician and one of the two patients on board -- died in the crash as the pilot sought to land in poor weather near Andrews Air Force Base.

The pilot initially tried to land shortly before midnight on Sept. 27 at Prince George's County Hospital, but changed course for Andrews because of the bad weather, according to the report.

The audio documents the efforts to determine if the helicopter had landed safely after Andrews lost the chopper on radar. The Maryland State Police Forestville Barracks is the first to notify SYSCOM there is a problem, after Forestville was contacted by Andrews tower.

The report indicates that just before the pilot lost communication with the control tower at Andrews, he sought assistance for a radar landing, called an Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR) approach.

But the tower controller said she was not certified to handle such an approach. At that point, communication was lost, according to the report.

For several years, qualification to conduct ASR approaches has not been required of tower controllers, said Laura Brown, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Radar landings are handled by controllers at separate facilities.

Even if the tower controller were qualified for ASR approaches, it is not at all clear that it would have helped in this instance. Such landings require aircraft to be at a certain altitude, and it is unknown if the helicopter was able to conduct such a landing in the moments before it lost communication.

The NTSB preliminary report also now indicates it was the crew from Trooper 8 located in Montgomery County's Norwood, MD, that found the downed chopper. The crew drove to the scene. Here's the description from the NTSB:

A civilian pilot working for the Maryland State Police as Trooper 8 (T8), based in Norwood, Maryland, reported he overheard T2 on a scanner state he was unable to land at PG due to fog and was returning to ADW. T8 then looked at the weather for Gaithersburg, Maryland and ADW, which were both good. He also checked Tipton, Maryland, and College Park, Maryland, which were both below minimums with ceilings between 500 to 600 feet.

T8 added that the SYSCOM duty officer notified him at 0025 that T2 was missing, and requested he launch and head towards ADW. T8 departed Norwood, encountered low-level clouds 2 miles from ADW, and aborted the flight. After returning to Norwood, T8 and his medic proceeded in a vehicle to the area where T2 was thought to have crashed. Using the last radar return for the helicopter, T8 estimated where T2 might be located and set off on foot with his medic. They located the accident site at 0130.

At STATter 911's request, 9NEWS NOW reporter Bruce Leshan questioned the "0130" time of discovery of the wreckage in the preliminary report. Previous timelines and our own monitoring of the call put the time at around 2:00 AM. The NTSB now confirms Trooper 8's crew found the chopper at 1:58 AM.

NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said the investigation continues.

# posted by Dave Statter @ 8:49 AM