AirCare Medical helicopter crash near the Natchez Trace kills 3

MADISON COUNTY, Miss. (VDN) — An AirCare medical helicopter crash near the Natchez Trace in Madison County has killed 3 people. There was no patient on board.

Two medical students and a pilot were killed in a helicopter crash near the Natchez Trace in Madison County, Mississippi. At around 12:30 p.m., Madison County responded to a call of a helicopter crash in a wooded area around Highway 43 near the Natchez Trace.

“We have four helicopters that are stationed around the state,” said an official with UMMC. “We have one of the busiest medical transport helicopter services in the country, there’s a big demand for those services.”

According to sources, the flight originated at St. Dominick’s in Jackson and crashed 27 minutes into the flight.

UMMC released the following statement:

“This afternoon, an AirCare helicopter had an accident in Madison County, north of the Ross Barnett Reservoir. Two UMMC employee crew members and a Med-Trans pilot were on board. There was no patient aboard. Law Enforcement and first-response units have responded to the scene and families are being contacted. We will share more information when possible.”

The cause of the crash is unknown at this time.

About AirCare

According to UMMC, the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s helicopter flight program began operations in 1996 with a single helicopter based in Jackson. The Jackson-based AirCare 1 helicopter was joined by the Meridian-based AirCare 2 helicopter in spring 2009, the Golden Triangle-based AirCare 3 in spring 2016, and the Greenwood-based AirCare4 in fall 2017.

The additional helicopters allowed AirCare to expand its mission profile by transporting patients to not only UMMC, but other hospitals able to provide levels of care required by the patient’s illness or injury.

Scene response profile has also changed, allowing the transportation of multiple patients from a single location. Since the program’s inception, AirCare teams have safely transported over 18,000 adults, pediatric and neonatal patients over 2 million miles without any FAA-reportable accidents.