INDIAN SPRINGS, Nev. (AP) -- A pilot and two nurses aboard a medical helicopter died when their aircraft crashed in snowy weather shortly after delivering a patient to a hospital.
The helicopter had dropped off a patient at Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas, but the crew failed to make a routine 15-minute check-in about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, said hospital spokeswoman Rebecca Blair.The crew of the air ambulance, a Euro BO-105, was returning to base in Pahrump when it was reported down about 12:10 a.m. Sunday, said Jerry Acosta, a duty officer with the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles.
The crash site was about 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "It's a pretty devastating scene," said Lt. Richard Alba, spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The crash killed pilot James Bond Jr., and flight nurses Kathy Batterman and Leroy Shelton, said Blair, whose medical center operates the Flight for Life air ambulance program.
The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating.
The last fatal crash involving a Flight for Life helicopter occurred in 1983, when three crew members were killed, Blair said.