‘A humble person’: Family friend praises pilot injured in Sacramento helicopter crash
By Denzen Cortez
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SACRAMENTO, California (KCRA) — REACH Air Medical has released the names of those on board Monday’s helicopter crash along Highway 50 in Sacramento.
The pilot flying the H130 helicopter was 60-year-old Chad Millward, a former California Highway Patrol pilot. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are continuing to investigate what caused the aircraft to go down just minutes into its flight.
Claudia Rogers, a longtime family friend of Millward, told KCRA 3 that he was always busy serving others — whether through his work, church, or family.
“He was always working — if he wasn’t at church or with his family and doing all that — he was working,” Rogers said.
Rogers, who attended the same church as Millward years ago in Palo Cedro, described him as a man who treated everyone with kindness.
“He was kind to just everybody — not just members of our church, but everybody. And everybody loved Chad. And he got some big award,” she said.
That award was the Public Safety Medal of Valor, presented by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. Millward received the state’s highest honor for valor for his role in rescuing individuals during the 2017 Atlas Fire in Napa County.
Rogers said Millward’s humility stood out most.
“He never bragged about himself. He never said, like, ‘I did this,’ or ‘I did that.’ He was just such a humble, humble person,” she said.
All three people on board the helicopter — including Millward, flight nurse Suzie Smith, and paramedic Margaret “DeDe” Davis — remain hospitalized in critical condition as the investigation continues.
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