Crashed Cessna Grazed Med-Evac Chopper
What: Cessna 172H
Where: Staunton, Virginia
When: Dec 31, 2010, 2 pm
Who: 2 fatalities, 2 aboard.
Why: As the privately owned Cessna was departing Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport, half of a mile from the airport, the plane grazed the top of AirCare 5, a medical-evacuation Eurocopter EC135 and the Cessna crashed, killing the two aboard.
The registered owner of the plane is Michael W. Price of Elkton, Va.
Three people, pilot Paul Weve, co-pilot and flight nurse Joseph Root and flight nurse Carolyn Booke were aboard the helicopter, which landed safely. They had just dropped off a patient at the University of Virginia Medical Center. PHI Inc. of Lafayette, Louisiana owns the helicopter which is based at Weyers Cave Airport.
Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport is 30 miles northwest of Charlottesville. SHD is an “uncontrolled airport” with no air traffic control tower.






On takeoff, the left engine failed. The pilot had to make a forced landing a half-mile southeast of the airport, which set off a field fire. 



