By KEVIN DAYTON
The Honolulu Advertiser (Hawaii)
HILO, Hawaii — A new federal report on a Hawai’i Air Ambulance crash on the Big Island in 2004 that killed three people does not give any specific cause for the crash, but the head of the air ambulance company said the report clears his company and the pilot of any wrongdoing.
The National Transportation Safety Board last week posted a fact-finding report on the crash near Laupahoehoe of the Cessna 414A on Jan. 31, 2004, that killed pilot Ron Laubacher, 38, along with Honolulu paramedics Joseph Daniel Villiaros, 39, and Mandy Shiraki, 47.
The crew was headed to Hilo to pick up a patient, but at about 1:40 a.m. crashed into a stand of 80-foot eucalyptus trees on the shoulder of Mauna Kea at about the 3,600-foot elevation. The wreckage was found on Feb. 2 about 21 miles northwest of Hilo.
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