A new federal report on a 2019 air ambulance crash in Southeast Alaska that killed all three crew members adds new mystery to an already challenging investigation into what caused the plane to go down just before landing in Kake.
Both front flight crew seats and a passenger seat recovered from the ocean floor were empty, their restraints unbuckled, according to a National Transportation Safety Board factual report released Wednesday. The base of a second passenger seat was recovered but without the seat back or restraint. One rear seat wasn’t found.
The twin-engine, turbine-powered Beechcraft B200 took off from Anchorage the afternoon of Jan. 29 for the roughly 600-mile trip to pick up a patient in the Tlingit village. It never arrived.
Lost in the crash were pilot Patrick Coyle, 63; flight paramedic Margaret Langston, 43; and flight nurse Stacie Morse, 30. Coyle was a seasoned pilot with thousands of hours of flying time. Langston was recently married. Morse was 27 weeks pregnant.