Angel Flight: 2 Dead, Pilot Missing In New York Crash

An Angel Flight has left two dead and the volunteer pilot missing after the twin-engine Piper PA 34 went down in a pond late Friday afternoon in upstate New York.

The volunteer service puts together pilots and patients who need flights to receive medical services that they can’t get at home.

A 2011 Angel Flight crash of a Piper PA-28-180 aircraft in Australia killed three people, a 15-year-old patient, her mother, and a volunteer pilot on his 24th trip for the organization. A preliminary investigation into the cause of that accident uncovered poor visibility around the crash site, creating unsuitable conditions.

That Angel Flight was not a medical emergency, and it sparked debate in Australia about the use of small volunteer planes for non-emergency situations.

In the Friday afternoon crash, the Angel Flight plane went down in an area where it was completely covered by water, so that Fulton County Sheriff Thomas Lorey said that he couldn’t send in divers to search for the pilot’s body until daylight Saturday.

An FAA spokeswoman said that the flight was on its way from Bedford, Massachusetts to Rome, New York. Authorities haven’t yet revealed the names of the victims.

According to National Weather Service charts, there was rain as well as wind gusts of up to 15 miles an hour at the Rome, NY airport at the time of the crash. However, the visibility was estimated to be around 10 miles.

An unnamed witness told reporters on the scene that she saw pieces of the plane falling out of the sky. She refused to give her name, so it’s unclear how credible her information really is.

The search and investigation will continue Saturday. At that time, we hope to get more information about the Angel Flight that left at least two dead.

[Piper cub photo by Jakub Ha?un via Wikimedia Commons]