The tribe said in a statement that a small, double-propeller medical transport plane crashed and a fire broke out at the Nawazo nation in North Arizona on Tuesday, killing four people.
According to Federal Aviation Administration and CSI Aviation, Albuquerque, a medical flight service located in New Mexico, a beachcraft King Air 300 from CSI Aviation, flew with two pilots and two health care providers. It crashed in the afternoon near the airport in Chinley, about 300 miles north of Phoenix.
District Police Commander Emmet Yazi said, “They were trying to get there and unfortunately something went wrong.”
Handout through Nawajo Police Department /Reuters 
The crew was planning to take a patient, which required significant care from the Federal Indian Health Service Hospital in Chinley, said Sharan Sandowal, director of the Emergency Management Department, said. He said that the plan was to return to Albuquerque. The patient’s location and condition were not known on Tuesday evening.
Sandowal said that tribal officials started receiving the report of black smoke at the airport at 12:44 pm. The cause of the accident was not known, the tribe said. The National Transport Safety Board and FAA are investigating.
CSI aviation officials confirmed the deaths in an email “with great sadness” and expressed condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of those killed. Their names have not been released.
According to the statement, the company is cooperating in the investigation.
Nawazo Nation President Bu Nygren said in a social media post that he had broken heart to know about the accident.
“These were people who dedicated their lives to save others, and their loss is felt deeply in the Nawajo nation,” he said.
Medical transport by air from Nawajo nation is common because most hospitals are small and do not offer advanced or trauma care. Chinal Airport is one of a handful of airports owned by tribe and operates on a huge 27,000 square miles reservation that is spread over Arizona, New Mexico and Utah-the largest land base of any original American tribe.
In January, a medical transport plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing eight people. The National Transport Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, has said that the voice recorder was not working on the aircraft.
