UNC Air conducting its own investigation into RDU plane crash
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.
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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.
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.
"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."
"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."
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