Medical Helicopter With Three Crew Crashes Near Lone Wolf, Oklahoma; One Injured

A medical helicopter crashed in southwestern Oklahoma in the early hours of Friday, Nov. 13, injuring one of the three crew members aboard.

The crash was reported around 3:30 a.m., Kiowa County Sheriff Joe Janz told News9. The aircraft went down north of the small town of Lone Wolf.

What the sheriff has confirmed

Janz said one crew member sustained non-life-threatening injuries at the crash site. Another report said that person's condition was unknown, and the other two crew members' conditions have not been detailed.

No patients were on board, according to Janz. He said the helicopter was believed to have departed from an Oklahoma hospital and was bound for nearby Childress, Texas.

The Kiowa County Sheriff's Office also said the crew was flying back to a children's hospital in Texas when the aircraft crashed.

The sheriff's office has not released the exact location of the crash within the Lone Wolf area. Lone Wolf sits in southwestern Oklahoma, about two hours from Oklahoma City.

The response on the ground

A long list of agencies responded. They included the Kiowa County Sheriff's Office, Kiowa County Emergency Management, the Hobart Police Department, the Lone Wolf Fire Department, the Hobart Fire Department, Sinor EMS and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Early preliminary information from Times Now said one person was left pinned after the crash and that responders were setting up a landing zone after requesting helicopter air support. That report placed the scene near the intersection of N 2080 Road and E County Road 1390. The sheriff has not publicly addressed whether anyone was pinned, and the extent of the injuries has not been spelled out beyond Janz's description of one injured crew member.

Cause still unknown

No one has said what led to the crash. Janz said state and federal investigators were on scene, and the cause is under investigation.

The operator of the helicopter, the identities of the crew members and the aircraft type have not been released.

Authorities have not said whether weather, darkness or mechanical trouble played any role here. That question belongs to the investigators now on site.

The fact that no patient was aboard limits the human toll. Three people were in the aircraft, and by the sheriff's account one was hurt and the injury was not life-threatening.

What comes next

The unresolved questions are the basic ones: who operated the flight, who was aboard, how badly the injured crew member is hurt, and what happened to the aircraft shortly before it went down north of Lone Wolf. Further information about the aircraft, the identities of those aboard and the cause of the crash is awaited from the Kiowa County Sheriff's Office and the investigating agencies.