No Patients Were On Board At The Time Of The Accident

ANN Realtime Update 1400 EDT 03.25.2010: The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a team to investigate the crash of an emergency medical services (EMS) helicopter this morning in Brownsville, Tennessee, about 55 miles northeast of Memphis. Three crewmembers were killed in the accident; there was no patient onboard at the time of the crash.

NTSB Air Safety Investigator Ralph Hicks has been designated as Investigator-in-Charge and is traveling to the scene from the Safety Board's regional office in Atlanta. NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman will serve as principal spokesman during the on-scene investigation.

Improving the Safety of (EMS) flight operations has been on the NTSB's Most Wanted List of Safety Improvements since 2008.

Original Story: A medical helicopter has gone down in a rural area of Tennessee, resulting in the loss of all three crewmembers reportedly on board at the time of the accident.

The accident happened at about 0600 CDT Thursday. Multiple media sources including The Associated Press report that the helicopter had just dropped off a patient at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital in Jackson, TN, and was returning to its home base in Brownsville when it went down during what was described as a "severe" rainstorm just a few miles from its destination.

The helicopter belonged to Hosptial Wing, a non-profit medical transportation company based in Brownsville. The Jackson Sun Newspaper reports that a dispatcher who was in contact with the aircraft lost contact about 0600. The dispatchers used a GPS tracking device on board the helo to locate the crash site.

The helicopter went down a wheat field about four miles east of Brownsville, which is northeast of Memphis.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov