UNC Air conducting its own investigation into RDU plane crash
The plane that crashed on Wednesday at Raleigh-Durham International Airport is part of UNC's air operations.
It's the health transport service that takes medical residents, university faculty and other professionals to different locations around the state.
The UNC Air Operations medical plane that crashed at RDU around 10:10 a.m. was carrying Dr. Paul Chelminski, an internal medicine physician with UNC Health. Chelminski was taken to the hospital and released Wednesday afternoon. The pilot, Art Johnson, was taken to Duke University Medical Center in Durham and is in fair condition.
UNC Health said Chelminski had just given a lecture at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington.
This plane that crashed at RDU is one of a fleet of six. According to the UNC Air Operations website, they typically fly five to seven flights every day, usually with between one to three people on board.
An average day for one of these planes could be flying a UNC dental school faculty member to a conference in Asheville or bringing medical residents to Wilmington to see patients at a clinic.
WRAL learned this is the first major incident in the 50 years of operation.
"We fly just about once or twice a day, and we fly all over the state," said Executive Director of North Carolina AHEC Hugh Tilson. "We fly to all nine AHEC regions, in fact we fly mostly to rural and underserved communities."
Johnson, the pilot, has been with UNC since 2013. Tilson said Johnson previously worked for the department of transportation.
"He's a 30-year state employee," Tilson said of Johnson. "I think he's flown over 16,000 hours. I think he's got the highest rating that's available. I think he may be an instructor."
In 1999, WRAL profiled a pair of doctors who flew to Rutherford County as part of the Area Health Education Centers program. At the time, there were no major medical centers in Rutherford County, but the program was able to bring high-level care to rural areas all over the state. Dr. John Cotton is a pediatric cardiologist who was featured in the piece and is still with UNC Health.
"I think we're able to provide them a service that they don't locally have, and it makes their lives a lot easier," Cotton said. "It's a lot easier for me to travel as opposed to having 19 patients that we saw today travel back to Chapel Hill."
Skies were mostly cloudy, but it was not raining at the time the plane crashed. Weather is not believed to be a factor.
After Wednesday's crash, UNC is conducting its own investigation and has issued a ground stop until next week as a precaution.
"We always want to look at are we doing the things that we know we need to do? In terms of maintaining the flight, training the pilots," Tilson said. "I had a great conversation with our leadership, and all the training is up to date. All the mechanics' logs are up to date."
