Controller Reassigned In Medevac Copter Crash

Md. State Police Pilot Given Hours-Old Weather Data

An air traffic controller was removed from his regular duties after giving the pilot of a state medevac helicopter a weather report based on hours-old information shortly before the helicopter crashed in Prince George's County, according to records made public yesterday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The pilot decided to land at Andrews Air Force Base after the controller reported clouds starting there at 1,800 feet, according to the records. In fact, conditions were far worse. Fifteen minutes later, at 12:06 a.m., a different controller, based at Andrews, noted that thick, dense clouds started at 500 feet.

By then, the helicopter had already gone down. Four people died in the September crash, including the pilot and a patient who was being flown from a car accident in Waldorf. It was the worst medevac crash in state history.

In advance of an upcoming hearing on crashes of emergency helicopters, the safety board released hundreds of records relating to the Maryland crash. While the board drew no conclusions about the cause, the records indicate that a large-scale search was not initiated until nearly an hour after the helicopter disappeared from radar and that the second controller was unable to provide searchers with the helicopter's last-known coordinates to guide their efforts.

Guidelines call for the state police-run helicopter service not to initiate flights at night when the cloud ceiling "is less than 800 feet [above ground level] and/or the visibility is less than three miles," according to the NTSB records.

Kendall Young, the controller who relayed the misleading weather report, has been assigned to administrative duties, according to the records. A woman who answered the phone at his house last night said he was not available to comment.

Young told investigators that the weather report is supposed to automatically update, and that the only way to tell if it is not updating is to check the timestamp. Young has been a Federal Aviation Administration controller for almost 30 years.

At 11 p.m. Sept. 27, a duty officer at the helicopter dispatch office contacted pilot Stephen Bunker with a request to transport two car accident victims to Prince George's Hospital Center in Cheverly.

It was stormy, and the two discussed flying conditions. The officer left the decision to Bunker, according to a transcript of the exchange. "That's up to you," the officer said, "do you think you can fly it?"

Bunker reviewed the cloud levels in College Park and at Reagan National Airport, and remarked that a MedStar helicopter had just landed at Washington Hospital Center in the District.

"If they can do it, we can do it," Bunker said.

"Okay, it is up to you," the officer said.