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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."