The Med Flight helicopter crash that killed three crew members Saturday was the first air fatality in La Crosse County since a small jet crash killed a pilot and passenger at the 2001 Airfest and the deadliest in the region since a Northwest Airlines passenger plane smashed into the bluff near Fountain City, Wis., nearly 60 years ago.

Dr. Darren Bean, nurse Mark Coyne and pilot Steve Lipperer died when their helicopter ambulance crashed in Keil Coulee in the town of Medary as they returned to UW Hospital in Madison after dropping off a patient in La Crosse. Federal authorities are investigating the cause.
It’s been nearly seven years since pilot Roger Simpson of Northville, Mich., and passenger Sarah Hanson died in a jet crash before the Deke Slayton Airfest. The crash was caused when a wingtip fuel tank separated and the plane broke up over the airport.

Hanson, of Holmen, Wis., had been married the week before and received the jet flight as a wedding gift. Her husband had flown in the same jet the day before.

Saturday’s crash is the only fatal helicopter accident on record for the area, according to National Transportation Safety Board data and the La Crosse Public Library archives.

In the past two decades, four fatal aircraft crashes have occurred in the region, all involving private, small, fixed-wing planes.

La Crosse’s first fatal air crash happened in 1921 — a decade after the first airplane landing here — when a mail plane flying from Chicago to Minneapolis exploded and crashed as the pilot attempted to land on French Island. All three on board died. An inquiry later blamed obsolete equipment and a drunken mechanic at the Chicago airfield.

The next recorded fatalities came in 1936, when a pilot and his student crashed during a lesson.

The deadliest area crash occurred in 1948, when a Northwest Airlines plane went down in a thunderstorm near Fountain City, killing all 37 passengers and crew aboard. At the time, it was the worst crash in the company’s history.

Other area air fatalities

MAY 5, 2008: One killed when crop-dusting plane crashes north of New Lisbon, Wis., in Juneau County.

2003: Two killed when amateur-built McIlraith Sea Rey crashes near Tomah, Wis., en route to La Crosse.

2002: One killed when Cessna 208B crashed as a result of ice near Alma, Wis., en route from Minneapolis to Detroit.

1993: Two killed when Cessna 172I crashed into a hay field near Ettrick, Wis., after an in-flight explosion caused by a can of solvent in the baggage compartment.

1987: Two killed and one injured when Cessna 172A slammed into the ground in Tomah during attempted landing.

Source: National Transportation Safety Board

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