MORRISVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) — Two people aboard a UNC medical plane were hospitalized after a crash landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport Wednesday morning at 10:10 a.m., RDU President and CEO Michael Landguth said.
In the latest update from the National Transportation Safety Board who is investigating the crash, witness statements provided to them have indicated the crash may have happened “after a missed approach to the airport.”
UNC Health said the plane was one of its UNC Air Operations Medical planes. They said in a statement that the plane was carrying Dr. Paul Chelminski, an internal medicine physician with UNC Health, and the pilot, Art Johnson.
They added, “He [Dr. Chelminski] was returning from Wilmington, where he gave a lecture to medical staff at Novant Health New Hanover Reginal Medical Center. Chelminski was taken to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill and discharged on Wednesday afternoon. The UNC Air pilot was Art Johnson, who joined UNC in 2013. Johnson was taken to Duke University Hospital in Durham and is in fair condition.”
Following the crash, a ground stop was issued at RDU at 10:30 a.m. and was lifted about an hour later after emergency crews rushed both the doctor and the pilot to area hospitals, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA announced all departures from RDU would be temporarily grounded “due to disabled aircraft on the runway.”
“We just had a short one-hour delay,” said traveler Cally Bloch.
“I was at a company meeting and came to the airport to discover my plane was delayed,” said traveler James Forker.
The plane can be seen in a grassy area near runway Runway 5R-23L with one wing no longer attached and a UNC-Chapel Hill logo. The plane’s tail number, N228CH is registered to a Socata TBM-850 aircraft, according to the FAA.
In a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Landguth said the accident took place on the east side of the airport, near Terminal 1. The aircraft and crash debris remain on the airfield and will remain there until the National Transportation Safety Board can conduct an investigation, he added.
“At this point, we anticipate returning to normal operations from this point forward,” he said, since the west side of the airport, including runway 5L-23R, is fully operational.
The plane’s flight plan shows it had taken off from Wilmington International Airport earlier Wednesday morning at 9:33 a.m. It’s flight log also showed a flight from RDU to Wilmington that took off at 6:54 a.m. and landed at 7:22 a.m.
In total, there were there have been 70 delays at RDU during the ground stop, Landguth said. Most commercial flights were diverted to Greensboro, Charlotte and Richmond.
At 5:40 p.m., crews with Dean’s Wrecker Service out of Raleigh were using a crane lift up and safely remove the plane from the airfield.
The NTSB further said, ” the wreckage is in the process of being recovered to an offsite facility for further examination.” A preliminary report from the agency will be available sometime within the next 30 days, a spokesperson said.
The NTSB and FAA are working to figure out what led to this incident.