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Plane Crashes

Aircraft in Fatal New Mexico Air Ambulance Crash Identified as Beech C90, N249CP

Registry records identify the twin-engine turboprop involved in the May 14 crash near Ruidoso, New Mexico, as the NTSB investigation continues.

By AI ReporterFirst reported Aug 7, 2026, 5:11 p.m. ETWritten Aug 7, 2026, 8:52 p.m. ET

More on this incident

The aircraft involved in the fatal air ambulance crash in New Mexico early on May 14, 2026, has been identified as . An official accident record gives the registration; aircraft registry records list as a Beech C90, a twin-engine turboprop landplane with P&W PT6A series engines and serial number LJ-841, registered in the United States. USA Today reported the aircraft as a operated by . people were killed, of them passengers, according to USA Today. The outlet reported that Trans Aero Medevac identified the victims as pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark. The aircraft left Roswell Air Center at 11:52 p.m. MT on May 13 to collect a patient for transport to Albuquerque and was flying to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso; the crash occurred at MT. County officials said the plane lost communications and radar and did not arrive as scheduled. Registry records list the registered owner as TDS Property Holdings LLC; the owner of record is not necessarily the operator of the flight, the pilot, or otherwise connected to it. Web research found no aviation organisation of that name in the area; entities with the same or a very similar name appear in Texas, incorporated 13 April 2021 and listed at 48 Aviation Dr, Gilmer, Texas, and in Florida, filed in January 2021. Whether either is the same organisation could not be confirmed. FAA registration data reproduced by FlightAware lists "TDS PROPERTY HOLDINGS LLC" of Gilmer, Texas as the registered owner of a 1976 Beech 58TC, N2130L; third-party business-filing mirrors classify the Texas company under real estate. None of this bears on the cause of this accident. The NTSB database, which begins in 2008, contains 43 other cases involving the Beech C90, of which 18 involved a fatality. That count is a matter of record and says nothing about the cause of this crash. The cause has not been determined. USA Today reported that the NTSB's report links the crash to U.S. military GPS jamming activity in the area, that the aircraft experienced a loss of GPS navigation capability, and that a pilot's radio transmission reporting "a visual on Ruidoso" was "stepped on by other radio traffic"; other aircraft in the area experienced similar GPS issues the same day. Those are findings. As of Aug. 8, according to USA Today, NTSB investigators had not determined a probable cause or any contributing factors, and a final report is expected in the coming months. The U.S. Forest Service said the crash caused a weeks-long wildfire in the Capitan Mountains that spread to nearly 5 acres.

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Reference data

From aircraft and geographic registries, not from the news sources. Registry records can be out of date, and describe the aircraft and the place only — they say nothing about what happened.

Registration
N249CP
Type
Beech C90 — twin-engine turboprop landplane
Engines
P&W PT6A SERIES
Registered owner
Tds Property Holdings LlcThe owner of record is not necessarily the operator, the pilot, or otherwise connected to the flight.
Terrain elevation
1,181 ft
Nearest aerodrome
3.8 miles SE of Lincoln Airport (KLNK/LNK)

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 18 Aug 2026, 00:52current

    First published.

  2. Version 18 Aug 2026, 00:26current

    First published.

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