|
|
• Five dead, two initially survive crash
By Linda Green
|
|
 |
| Deputies continued to keep the area near the crash roped off Thursday. Photo by Jim Wallace, Correspondent. |
The emergency management director in McDuffie County has verified that there were two survivors of the plane crash that killed five people Wednesday night in Thomson.
The Hawker Beechcraft 390/Premier plane crashed about 8 p.m., after attempting to land at the Thomson-McDuffie Regional Airport. The plane was in flight from John Tune Airport in Nashville, Tenn., when it overran the runway and crashed into the woods.
Bruce Tanner, chief of McDuffie County Fire Rescue Service and EMA director, said that the pilot, whose name has not been released, walked out of the crash area, was picked up by EMS and airlifed to GRU hospital in Augusta.
“We learned from the pilot that there were six passengers, and himself on the plane,” Tanner said.
The chief said when firefighters reached the crash site; they found one survivor still belted into a seat. “That person was carried out of the woods and air-vaced to MCG,” he said.
“We searched the area and found five people,” he said. “They were found both inside and outside the plane.”
Tanner said that federal protocol prohibited them from doing anything until the FAA arrived on the scene. Once they arrived, firefighters performed body recovery. “The five bodies were sent to the crime lab in Atlanta,” he said.
The search, rescue and recovery was performed by three units from the McDuffie County Fire Rescue Service, the Thomson Fire Department and two fire fighters from Bush Field in Augusta. EMS also was on the scene.
“There were two men and it seemed like there were three women,” he said, “There were burns and serious trauma to the bodies,” he added.
McDuffie County Sheriff Logan Marshall said the five people “were associated with the Vein Guys,” medical companies, which specialize in varicose, vein surgery. The Nashville, Tenn.-based Company has an office in Augusta.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating the cause of the crash. The NTSB launched a go-team on Feb. 21 to investigate the accident.
For additional information, read this weekend’s edition of The McDuffie Progress.
|
|
|
 |
|
