Not a good night for any of us involved with emergency medicine her in Alaska. Guardian has grounded their air operations tonight for a mandatory safety check.

https://www.ktva.com/story/398...sing-plane-near-kake


Coast Guard seeks missing medevac flight near Kake

Tuesday, January 29th 2019, 9:21 PM AKST

Updated: Tuesday, January 29th 2019, 11:24 PM AKST
By: Megan Mazurek

The U.S. Coast Guard was searching Tuesday evening for an medevac aircraft out of Anchorage that had been headed for the Southeast Alaska community of Kake.

Alaska State Troopers spokesman Tim DeSpain said the plane was reported missing at about 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer 1st Class Charly Hengen said the King Air 200, operated by Guardian Flight, had taken off Tuesday from Anchorage with three people on board. It had been expected in Kake at 6:19 p.m., but never arrived.

"They were going there to pick up a person in Kake," Hengen said.

Three Guardian Flight employees, a pilot, nurse and paramedic, were aboard the aircraft, according to statement by Randy Lyman, Senior Vice President of Operations.

In the statement Lyman also said, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to our fellow employees and their families during this trying time."

The Coast Guard has sent the cutter Anacapa from Juneau, as well as a Sitka-based MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, to search for the aircraft about 20 miles west of Kake. Good Samaritan vessels in the area are also helping look for the plane.

"Our crews are going to be diligently searching throughout the night for this missing aircraft, and we greatly appreciate the assistance of good Samaritan crews in the search," Hengen said.

Weather conditions in the search area included light rain and overcast skies, with visibility at 10 miles and 7 mph winds.

Guardian Flight has initiated a stand down of its entire fleet until more information is available.

Chris Klint contributed information to this story.

Copyright 2019 KTVA. All rights reserved.

With a previous career as a flight nurse/paramedic, these always tug at my heart strings.

Those planes have a pretty good safety record. It'll be interesting to know what happened.

It's a hard one for us since so many of our patients arrive by air. We all know the flight crews. It's been an absolute crazy night with all hospitals in Anchorage on divert. I received the last flight of the night before all flights were grounded. It's almost like after the news of the lost flight got out, God said, "That's enough." and the never ending stream of patients tonight came to a halt.

I sure hope a positive outcome happens out of this. Prayer sent for a miracle and for the families, co-workers and friends of those on the flight. May God bless and watch over all those involved in these types of operations.

I’m quite sure I read about a Life Flight helo going down back east yesterday, Ohio or Pennsylvania...

A real shame

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
I’m quite sure I read about a Life Flight helo going down back east yesterday, Ohio or Pennsylvania...

A real shame

Crew of three, all died:

https://www.dispatch.com/news/...ter-crash-identified