A small medical plane crashed in a mountainous region outside Ruidoso, New Mexico, before dawn on Thursday, killing all four individuals aboard and igniting a wildfire in the surrounding forest, officials confirmed.
The blaze quickly expanded to 35 acres amid dry, windy conditions by midday, according to Lincoln County Manager Jason Burns.
Burns expressed significant concern about the fire, noting that local agencies were collaborating with the U.S. Forest Service to contain it.
The cause of the crash remains unknown.
The aircraft was located between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Thursday in steep, rocky terrain within the Capitan Mountains, a site so challenging to access that crews had to hike the final half-mile to reach it, Burns stated.
The victims were identified as flight crew and medical personnel, though their names have not yet been released.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families, loved ones, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives in this tragic incident,” Burns said at a news conference.
The flight, operated by Trans Aero MedEvac, had departed from Roswell Air Center and was en route to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport.
The company reported the plane overdue after communications and radar contact were lost during its medical transportation mission.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate the incident.
Trans Aero MedEvac has been operating in southeastern New Mexico and west Texas since 1966.
Ruidoso, a mountain town with a year-round population under 8,000, is situated at the base of south-central New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca range.
The surrounding area, including Lincoln National Forest, is heavily forested and rural. This incident echoes a previous tragedy in 2007, when five people died after a medical plane crashed in the Devil’s Canyon area of Lincoln National Forest shortly after departing Ruidoso Regional Airport for Albuquerque.
Nationally, NTSB records indicate 25 fatal medical plane crashes over the past 25 years, resulting in nearly 70 deaths.
Recent incidents include a jet crash in a Philadelphia neighborhood in January 2025, which killed eight people, and an August crash on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona that claimed four lives.
In December, a Mexican Navy plane carrying a young patient and seven others crashed off the Texas coast in the Gulf.
Despite these incidents, aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, a former NTSB and FAA crash investigator, asserts that medical evacuation plane flights are generally no more dangerous than other flights, as they operate between airports like any commercial aircraft.
He distinguishes this from medical helicopter flights, which he notes are more hazardous due to frequent landings on roads or improvised sites to quickly transport injured individuals.
A study covering a 20-year period ending in 2020 found that over 70% of air medical fatalities occurred on helicopters.
“Typically when an air medical air plane accident occurs, the reasons are usually the same as any other airplane accident. There’s not unique issues with the air medical mission,” Guzzetti explained.
