Ex-isle copter pilot
is killed in crash
A flight instructor who moved recently from Hawaii died yesterday in a helicopter crash that also injured his student pilot at Front Range Airport in Colorado.
The two-passenger Schweizer 300C belonging to Highlander Helicopter Flight Training crashed around 9:11 a.m. in a grassy area between two taxiways, airport director Dennis Heap said in a written statement.
The crash killed Lio Lecointre, 33, who had been working for Highlander Helicopter for four weeks, said the company's owner, Calvin Farrow.
In West Hawaii, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters part-owner Dave Griffin said Lecointre's wife works for his company. He described her as distraught over the death of her husband, whom she married four months ago. She does not wish to make any statement, Griffin said. The company has operations in Kona and Hilo.
In Hilo a man identifying himself as Tony, who works at Planet Ocean Water Sports, confirmed that Lecointre had worked there as a scuba instructor for several years until roughly a month ago when the job opened up in Colorado.
"He was a gem," Tony said.
People wanting to learn scuba diving would specifically ask for Lecointre, he said.
The fact that that he was both a pilot and a scuba instructor shows how talented he was, Tony said.