They were flying through the dark of early morning, racing to help someone they’d never met. That’s the kind of people they were. Two flight nurses — Sarah Clark and Jamie Novick — along with pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara, took off from Roswell on May 14 aboard a Beechcraft King Air 90, headed to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport near Ruidoso, New Mexico. It was a routine medical transport run. They never landed.
The plane went down just after 4 a.m. in the rugged Capitan Mountains, deep inside Lincoln National Forest. All four were found dead at the crash site. Search and rescue teams had to work through steep, difficult terrain just to reach them. To make a terrible situation even harder, the impact ignited a wildfire — now called the Seven Cabins Fire — that tore through more than 2,600 acres of dry, downed timber within days, forcing evacuations and pulling in air tankers, helicopter crews, and hotshot teams from across the region.
Sarah Clark wasn’t just another flight nurse. She was the daughter of Matt Clark, Otero County’s Emergency Manager — a family that had already given so much to public service. The Cloudcroft Fire Department confirmed her identity with heavy hearts. Her colleagues described her as someone whose compassion was as strong as her clinical skill. She showed up, every time, for people at their worst moments.
Jamie Novick’s husband spoke publicly after news of her death broke. He called her his beautiful bride, his best friend, his other half. People who worked alongside her said emergency medicine wasn’t just a career for Jamie — it was her calling. She had a reputation for staying calm under pressure, for thinking fast, and for caring deeply about every patient who came through that aircraft door.
Pilot Keelan Clark’s mother took to Facebook to grieve her son, writing that the most magnificent human being had left this earth. She described him as a precious soul with a mischievous streak, someone who was always quick to laugh, with that signature smirky face that everyone who knew him seemed to remember. He flew because he loved it. He took medical transport missions because the work mattered to him.
Ali Kawsara, the second pilot aboard, was remembered by family as someone deeply grounded in faith and purpose. His brother Sabah reflected on the fragility of life in the aftermath of the crash, asking publicly whether any of us are really ready for the day we leave this world. It was the kind of question this tragedy forced a lot of people to sit with.
Trans Aero MedEvac and Generation Jets released a joint statement saying those they lost were more than coworkers — they were family, caregivers, aviators, teammates, and friends who dedicated their lives to serving others with compassion, professionalism, and courage. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are now investigating the crash. As of now, no cause has been determined. But what is already known is that four people got on that plane to help a stranger, and none of them came back.
