Medical pilot had a clean record

The pilot of a medical plane that slammed into a mountainside on its way to pick up a patient had no record of accidents or violations in his 22 years of flying, his employer said Sunday.

Eagle Air Med Inc. pilot Ric Miller, 46, of Wenatchee, Wash., died in the crash along with flight nurse Ronnie Helton, 25, of Birmingham, Ala., and paramedic Dana Dedman, 32, of Chinle, Ariz., the company said.

The wreckage was found Friday in mountainous terrain just west of the continental divide near 11,677-foot high Charley’s Peak in southern Colorado.

The crew had left Chinle at 10:35 p.m. Thursday in the twin-engine Beech King Air C-90A to pick up a patient in Alamosa.

When they failed to show up, Eagle Air Med began searching for the crew and suspended all of its other flights.

Eagle Air Med said Miller had made no distress calls to its communications center. It was the company’s first fatal accident.

Miller held helicopter and fixed-wing pilot certificates and was airline-transport-pilot rated, the company said. He had more than 12,000 hours of logged flight time, including 2,400 hours with the Marine Corps Reserve, Eagle Air Med said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.