NTSB Final Report Points to Breakup in Fatal Air Ambulance Crash

Agency releases details of 2023 Pilatus accident in Nevada that killed five.

Meg Godlewski

Thursday, June 05, 2025 at 02:00 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

A Pilatus PC-12 [Credit: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

The NTSB attributed the February 2023 fatal air ambulance crash to poor weather and "insufficient risk assessment," which killed the pilot, two medical crew, and two passengers.
Contributing factors included the flight crew's relative inexperience, the company's failure to complete a required pre-flight risk assessment, and not informing the crew about previous flight cancellations due to severe weather.
The pilot likely became spatially disoriented while hand-flying in night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) after disengaging the autopilot, leading to an in-flight breakup.
An autopsy revealed the pilot had a brain tumor, which investigators stated may have contributed to his loss of spatial orientation.

See a mistake? Contact us.

The National Transportation Safety Board cites poor weather and “insufficient risk assessment” as causal factors in the February 2023 fatal crash of an air ambulance Pilatus PC-12/15 in Stagecoach, Nevada.

The pilot, two medical crewmembers, and two passengers were killed when the aircraft experienced a midflight breakup shortly after takeoff. The Pilatus was operating in night instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).

According to the 27-page NTSB final report released this week, the flight was a nonemergency transport of a patient from Reno-Tahoe International Airport (KRNO) to Salt Lake City International Airport (KSLC) in Utah.