CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kilani Villiaros, 14, spoke with her family at a press conference held yesterday about her father, Joseph Daniel Villiaros, who disappeared while flying in a twin-engine Cessna 414A between Oahu and Hawaii on Saturday.
Weather frustrates
Big Isle air searchRescue crews still hope
dense jungle reveals survivors
from a missing plane
An 11-hour search yesterday for a Hawaii Air Ambulance plane missing since early Saturday yielded no leads, but officials were expected to resume looking at sunrise today and family members kept up hope that the craft's passengers would be found alive.
A pilot and two paramedics, Waianae resident Mandy Shiraki and Honolulu firefighter Daniel Villiaros, were aboard the flight, which was headed to Hilo to pick up a patient for transport to Honolulu.
Four helicopters, a C-130 Hercules aircraft and a small Civil Air Patrol plane searched for the two-engine Cessna 414A along the Big Island's Hamakua Coast beginning at about 6 a.m. yesterday.
The search also stretched inland, over the dense Laupahoehoe Forest Reserve to the slopes of Mauna Kea. Coast Guard, Army, Hawaii County Fire Department and Civil Air Patrol personnel are expected to comb the same area today.
"We've really saturated the area of last known position," said Coast Guard Lt. j.g. James Garland. "We're going to keep searching ... We're still optimistic that we'll find them. We're hopeful to find survivors."
The search over the weekend covered 3,500 square miles.
Rescuers reported poor visibility along the Big Island's coastal areas yesterday because of low cloud cover. Garland also said the tree canopy over which crews were searching was so thick they were "unable to see into the forest."
The missing plane, whose last radar signal was received near the Waimea Airport, should have landed at the Hilo Airport at 1:50 a.m. Saturday. Officials have said the plane's last known position early Saturday was several miles south of the coastal route that Hawaii Air Ambulance pilots usually take.
The last radar transmission also showed the plane's altitude about 4,000 feet lower than normal for that route.
Garland said the pilot likely chose a more inland flight path to avoid bad weather.
"The coastline was terrible at that time," he said. "It was socked in with rain and heavy winds."
The plane was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, but no signal has been received from it. Garland said it's unusual for emergency beacons to be inoperable in the event of an accident.
But it's happened in two recent plane crashes.
Last January, officials never received an emergency signal from a single-engine airplane that went down on Molokai, killing its 17-year-old pilot. The beacon on a single-engine plane that crashed on Maui in July 2002, killing all four aboard, didn't transmit either.
Federal Aviation Administration records show the missing Air Ambulance plane is 26 years old. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, a plane with the same registration number, N5637C, had an engine failure in 1981 during a flight from Miami to Jackson, Miss., and suffered minor damage.
As the search for the plane continued above the Big Island yesterday afternoon, firefighter Villiaros' family came together at Hawaii Air Ambulance headquarters to talk about their hopes of finding him alive.
"This is a rude awakening," said Villiaros' mother, Dominica. "We didn't expect this to happen. But all I know is that we trust in God a lot and we know it's in His hands just as Danny believed."
Villiaros' 14-year-old daughter, Kilani, wiped away tears as her grandmother talked to reporters. Villiaros also has a 5-year-old son, Jordan.
Later, Kilani said "it wouldn't be a big shock" if her father survived the ordeal. "We all think he's still alive," she said. "He's a really strong person, with survival training."
Villiaros, the youngest of five children, received training as an emergency medical technician and paramedic when he joined the Army National Guard.
He has been with Hawaii Air Ambulance for about a year and is a Honolulu firefighter assigned to the Waiau Fire Station. In September, he received the Honolulu Fire Department's Medal of Honor for disarming a 16-year-old crystal methamphetamine user during a medical call.
Villiaros is also a surf instructor at Hawaiian Fire Surf School. Kevin Miller, a Waikiki firefighter who also works at the school and was in Villiaros' 1998 Fire Department recruit class, said he found out his friend's plane was missing late Saturday.
"We were actually in a meeting (at the school)," he said. "Of course, we were all stunned. We just stopped. We're just hoping that he survives."
Shiraki, the other paramedic aboard the flight, has worked almost 30 years for the Honolulu Emergency Medical Service. Fellow city EMS District Chief Kaipo Asing said Saturday that Shiraki is well-loved, respected and "believes in a high standard of medical care."
Hawaii Air Ambulance spokeswoman Darcie Scharfenstein declined to identify the plane's pilot.
She said Hawaii Air Ambulance operated as usual yesterday and flew eight medical transports the day before.
The Honolulu-based company of 100 employees and five Cessna 414A airplanes, including the one that is missing, has had no loss of life in its 25 years of patient transport.
Its only significant accident occurred in 1999, when an air ambulance's nose gear collapsed during a hard landing. No one was injured in the incident.
Dominica Villiaros, a minister at the Highest Praise Church in Pearl City, said yesterday that her missing son was active in Bible study.
"He told me, when the time comes, if it's God's will, he will be ready," she said. "I know that we will all be in the same place together. If God chose to take him, it's just that he went before us. Our family is at peace."
Air ambulance service flies
about 2,000 missions a yearAs the state's only private fixed-wing aeromedical provider, Hawaii Air Ambulance flies about 2,000 missions a year and has transported more than 23,000 people during its 25 years in business.
It's the only company in Hawaii certified with the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems and has had no deaths during its years of transporting patients from neighbor island hospitals to Oahu.
Andrew Kluger, Air Ambulance chairman and chief executive, bought the company seven years ago.
He told the Star-Bulletin in November that the company owned and operated five Cessna 414A fixed-wing aircraft that are medically equipped.
"We fly with medically trained staff," he said, "whether it's physicians, nurses or paramedics, and the planes are configured with life ports and ancillary equipment in order to be able to transport the patients safely, effectively and in as much comfort as possible."
The company is headquartered on Oahu, but operates out of three bases -- Honolulu, Maui and Hilo. They fly to 10 airfields on all the islands and have more than 100 employees. Their patients -- mostly in need of transport from the neighbor islands to Oahu -- are critically ill and in need of advanced life support.
