A special joint blessing service is planned for Monday, November 18, the one-year anniversary of the air medical plane crash that killed three Bismarck-Mandan area people.
Bonnie Cook, CHI St. Alexius Health Neonatal Intensive Care Unit RN; Chris Iverson, Metro Area Ambulance flight paramedic; and, Todd Lasky, Bismarck Air Medical pilot were killed when the air medical plane they were aboard apparently broke up in flight not long after take-off from the Bismarck airport.
They were on their way to Williston.
On Monday at 11:30 a.m., CHI St. Alexius Health, Bismarck Air Medical and Metro Area Ambulance will remember the three on the ill-fated flight during a blessing ceremony at a newly established memorial space near CHI St. Alexius Health’s South Broadway Entrance at 900 E Broadway Ave, Bismarck.
A preliminary report on the accident was released by National Transportation Safety Board investigators on November 29, 2018.
That report noted, after take-off, the plane was traveling at 14,000 feet above ground at 276 miles per hour (240 knots). “The airplane then entered a steep right bank and radar contact was lost. No distress calls were received. Wreckage was scattered for about 1 mile long and 600 feet wide on snow-covered terrain,” the initial report stated.
A final, more definitive report has yet to be released.