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Feb. 7--EL PASO -- The three-member crew of a Southwest Med Evac helicopter died Friday night when it crashed during a training flight at McGregor Range.

The pilot, William Montgomery of Avondale, Ariz., and two paramedics, John Sutter of Las Cruces and Anthony Archuleta of El Paso, were killed when the helicopter crashed as it prepared to land, said officials of Southwest Med Evac, a division of Omniflight Helicopters Inc.

The helicopter was not transporting patients. Further details of the crash were sketchy Saturday.

"The cause of the accident is unknown at this time," Anthony DiNota, president and chief operating officer of Omniflight, said in a statement. "There are many questions that need to be answered."

The crew was participating in a training exercise involving a simulated medical evacuation. Friday was the second day of the two-day exercise, Omniflight officials said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokes man Lynn Lunsford said the pilot and the paramedics were in a Eurocopter AS 350, which had flown from the El Paso International Airport to McGregor Range.

The training exercise had gone as planned and Montgomery radioed to company operators to say he intended to land the aircraft and anticipated no problems, Lunsford said.

Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in El Paso on Saturday to determine what happened after Montgomery's radio dispatch that could have led to the crash. Omni flight officials were also at the

crash site on Saturday.

"We're putting a team together to assess the wreckage," Lunsford said.

Southwest Med Evac is contracted with Fort Bliss for emergency medical services.

Weather was clear just before 8 p.m. Friday, and the aircraft was equipped with night-vision goggles, satellite navigation, a radar altimeter and GPS, Omniflight officials said.

Montgomery, the pilot, had been working for Omniflight for about six weeks. His sole responsibility was to fly paramedics on training exercises such as the one at Fort Bliss during the weekend, his wife, Linda Montgomery, said in a telephone interview.

William Montgomery, 63, was an Army pilot during the Vietnam War and had flown several kinds of aircraft throughout his career, his wife said. He had four daughters.

"He had a love of flying," Linda Montgomery said. "He was employed with Omniflight to fly the helicopter to pick up any military personnel that were injured."

Family members said Archuleta became a paramedic after working as a firefighter. Archuleta, 54, moved to El Paso from Colorado about a year ago, said Lori Franklin, his sister. Archuleta had three sons and was married to Kim Archuleta.

"They were just doing a training exercise and they invited him and another paramedic to go on the flight," Franklin said. "He was excited because he doesn't get to go on many flights."

Sutter's family could not be reached for comment.

Friday's fatal crash was the first since 2008 involving area aircraft.

In September 2008, four people were killed in airplane crash in the mountains near Ojinaga, Chihuahua.

Killed were the International Boundary and Water Commission's top officials, U.S. Commissioner Carlos Marin of El Paso and Mexican Commissioner Arturo Herrera Solis; Rio Grande Council of Governments Executive Director Jake Brisbin Jr.; and Volare Air Charter co-founder and pilot Matt Juneau of El Paso.

In October 2008, a propeller airplane went down just northwest of the Santa Teresa airport, killing the two people on board.

Omniflight aircraft were involved in four crashes in 2009, including one in which an aircraft ran out of gas and crashed and another in which a pilot lost control during night-vision-goggles training.

In September 2009, three people were killed when a Eurocopter aircraft operated by Omniflight crashed near Georgetown, S.C. According to a preliminary National Transportation Safety Board report, the pilot flew into bad weather.

In 2007, a Beech E90 aircraft registered to Omniflight crashed in the forest near Ruidoso. In that flight, five people were killed, including a 15-month-old girl receiving treatment for seizures and her mother.

Omniflight also was the operator of an Aug. 27, 1990, flight that killed four people, among them, musician Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Safety of flights for helicopter emergency medical units have become a priority for the National Transportation Safety Board. The number of fatalities during emergency operations has increased from seven in 2007 to 29 in 2008, according to board statistics.

In February 2009, the safety board had a public hearing with aviation stakeholders. They determined that developing flight-risk evaluation programs, requiring formalized dispatch procedures and installing Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems could reduce accidents.

Darren Meritz may be reached at dmeritz@elpasotimes.com; 546-6127