Hines also served 25 years in the military, including in the 125th Fighter Wing of the Florida National Guard. ![]() “There are simply not enough wonderful things to say about Dave to be able to fully describe him.” “He was a great teacher and mentor to the field of organ recovery and transplantation,” said Cheryl Martin, an organ recovery coordinator at the Mayo Clinic. Hines’ colleagues recalled his upbeat attitude and skills. In July, he completed a three-year residency in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in Rochester. “He was a wonderful husband and father.”Īccording to the Rochester Post-Bulletin, Bonilla graduated from Our Lady of the Rosary University in Bogota, Colombia, in 1985 and had several residencies and fellowships in Rochester between 19. “What resides in my mind and my heart is that he was just a noble and wonderful man,” his wife, Tracy Bonilla, told the Florida Times-Union. Augustine, also was killed.īonilla, 49, had recently transferred to Jacksonville from the Mayo Clinic’s home in Rochester, Minn., where his family still lives. They were going to pick up a heart for a transplant in Jacksonville. Luis Bonilla and procurement technician David Hines died Monday when the helicopter carrying them from Jacksonville to Gainesville crashed. Messages to those entities were not immediately returned Thursday.Two employees of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., who died in a helicopter crash are being remembered as caring medical professionals who loved their work. Leesburg police originally said the helicopter was owned by “Brainerd Helicopters Inc./Firehawk Helicopters.” Officials at the time said the entities provide fire suppression and other services. The aircraft is registered to Brainerd Helicopters at 8850 Airport Boulevard, which is the same address for Firehawk Helicopters, at Leesburg International Airport. The tail rotor was found about 78 feet north of the main wreckage. He heard a loud explosion and saw smoke rise above the tree line.” “The helicopter started to spin and fell below the tree line. “He then saw pieces, and then the tail section separating from the helicopter,” the report said. It hit the main rotor blades or the tail, according to the NTSB report, causing a loud boom. “On the seventh pass, an employee of the operator noticed the snorkel swinging.”Ī witness said the snorkel was “violently” swinging. “Witnesses reported that the helicopter made six uneventful passes in front of the operator’s hangar at and dropped water that was picked up from a lake adjacent to the airport,” the report said. “Several days of ground testing and calibration were performed before the accident flight, which was the first flight after the” installation of the tank and snorkel, the report said. The snorkel and water tank were installed in the helicopter on May 17, the NTSB report says. It could take two years to complete the final report. But public records show that Ray was from Texas, Ritchea lived in California, Gray has an address in Citrus County, Florida and Kupersmith hailed from Boise, Idaho.īefore the crash, a hose used to pick up water called a snorkel violently whipped back and forth and likely hit the rotor blades, causing the helicopter to break apart over the airport, according to a preliminary crash report the National Transportation Safety Board released June 9. The agency had no information about the hometowns of the victims. The Medical Examiner’s Office released the names to Spectrum News on Thursday. Robert Ray, 37 Ryan Ritchea, 35 Andrew Gray, 35 and Caleb Kupersmith, 30 died when a Sikorsky UH-60A Blackhawk crashed and exploded at Leesburg International Airport at 2:47 p.m. RELATED: Snorkel likely hit rotor blades in Leesburg helicopter crash, NTSB reports.A preliminary investigation by the NTSB determined the snorkel swung "violently" and hit the tail or blades.They were flying a firefighting helicopter during a training exercise when it went down near the airport.The Medical Examiner's Office has released the names of the people killed in a helicopter crash in Leesburg.
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