Air ambulance wreckage to be moved to Hilo today

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

Investigators yesterday continued sifting through evidence in Saturday's air ambulance crash that killed three people and were expected to move the wreckage of the Cessna 414A Chancellor to a hangar at the Hilo airport today.

Keith Holloway, public affairs officer for the National Transportation Safety Board, said investigators for the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration hoped to wrap up their work at the crash site yesterday.

The Hawai'i Air Ambulance plane crashed in stormy weather sometime after the last radar contact at 1:29 a.m. Saturday. The wreckage was discovered Monday at the 3,600-foot elevation in the 'Umikoa area, about 25 miles northwest of Hilo.

Pilot Ron Laubacher, 38, was killed in the crash along with paramedics Joseph Daniel Villiaros, 39, and Mandy Shiraki, 47. Shiraki was an Emergency Medical Services district supervisor in Honolulu, and Villiaros was a Honolulu firefighter.

The three were traveling to Hilo Medical Center to pick up a patient, but the plane departed from the usual coastal route, heading farther inland.

Hawai'i County firefighters said the plane apparently was headed away from Mauna Kea and back toward the ocean when it struck some trees in a heavily wooded area and dropped to the ground.

Holloway said Howard Plagens, the NTSB's investigator in charge, had requested radar data and a weather study.

The team planned to do a reconstruction of the plane tomorrow and would examine Hawai'i Air Ambulance records and interview employees over the weekend, Holloway said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.