Helicopter Crash Still A Mystery A Half-Year Later

SPOKANE - What caused a medical helicopter carrying a wounded fugitive to crash and kill all four aboard remains a mystery six months after the accident.

An incident report sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in Washington, D.C., contains no conclusive evidence that a scuffle on board led to the crash, says Arnold Scott, an air-safety investigator.

The Heartflite medical evacuation helicopter broke apart Aug. 27 near Spirit Lake, Idaho, while ferrying Robert Adams, 25, from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to Spokane for treatment of a gunshot wound in his chest.

Authorities said Adams illegally crossed the border into Idaho and was shot by a 70-year-old man after he forced his way into the man's home.

Once on Canada's list of most wanted fugitives, Adams had been convicted of burglary and was wanted on stolen property and rape charges. Initial speculation was that Adams somehow disrupted the flight, causing the helicopter to crash.

Scott reviewed 13 witness statements, some from people who monitored radios and said they heard the pilot say the crew was having trouble restraining the patient before the helicopter crashed.

But the nearly 200-page document prepared by Scott points to an apparent failure of a bearing that controlled the helicopter's rotor blades.

``There was a bearing failure, and whether the patient had anything to do with the accident cannot be proved one way or the other,'' Scott says. ``All I know is the pilot reported he wanted help unloading the patient.''

A transcript of air-to-ground communication shows pilot Pat Varea, 30, radioed ahead to ask that hospital support staff be available to help move Adams. But the transcript does not substantiate reports of an on-board struggle, Scott says.

``The autopsies could not prove conclusively one way or another whether injuries were sustained in flight,'' Scott says. ``All injuries appeared to be impact injuries.''

Also killed in the crash were Lyn Gould, 31, a nurse, and Robert Siekerman, 36, a respiratory therapist.

An NTSB helicopter specialist last fall found paint discoloration and blistering on the French-made Aerospatiale A-Star copter, indicating heat from a bearing failure in the rotating swash plate, which turns with the rotor blades. A Washington, D.C., laboratory confirmed the bearing failure.

The FBI was called to help in the investigation after an anonymously written poem suggesting the copter had been sabotaged appeared in a northern Idaho tavern. Officials later dismissed the poem as a hoax.