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“They were trying to land there and unfortunately something went
wrong,” district Police Commander Emmett Yazzie said.
The crew was planning pick up a patient who needed critical care
from the federal Indian Health Service hospital in Chinle, said
Sharen Sandoval, director of the Navajo Department of Emergency
Management. She said the plan was to return to Albuquerque. The
patient's location and condition were not known Tuesday evening.
Tribal authorities began receiving reports at 12:44 p.m. of
black smoke at the airport, Sandoval said. The cause of the
crash wasn't known, the tribe said. The National Transportation
Safety Board and the FAA are investigating.
CSI Aviation officials “with great sadness” confirmed the deaths
in an emailed statement and extended condolences to the
families, friends and loved ones of the people killed. Their
names haven't been released.
The company is cooperating with the investigation, according to
the statement.
Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said in a social media post
that he was heartbroken to learn of the crash.
“These were people who dedicated their lives to saving others,
and their loss is felt deeply across the Navajo Nation,” he
said.
Medical transports by air from the Navajo Nation are common
because most hospitals are small and do not offer advanced or
trauma care. The Chinle airport is one of a handful of airports
that the tribe owns and operates on the vast 27,000-square-mile
(70,000-square-kilometer) reservation that stretches into
Arizona, New Mexico and Utah — the largest land base of any
Native American tribe.
In January, a medical transport plane crashed in Philadelphia,
killing eight people. The National Transportation Safety Board,
which is investigating the crash, has said the voice recorder on
that plane was not working.
___
Associated Press journalists Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City
and Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona, contributed to this
report.
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