Kauai copter crash
brings flurry of callsAnxious kin worry
if their loved ones are
among 5 people killed
LIHUE >> Kauai government offices and the media have been flooded with inquiries from anxious friends and relatives of Garden Island visitors, eager to learn the identities of the four tourists who died, along with their pilot, in a tour helicopter crash Wednesday morning.
A decision was made Wednesday to withhold the names of all four visitors until all the bodies have been brought down from Mount Waialeale, positively identified and next of kin notified. As of this morning, one body remained on the mountain, so no names have been made public.
With about 20,000 tourists on the island, the inquiries have been nonstop since Wednesday afternoon.
The Bell 206B Jet Ranger helicopter crashed Wednesday on a ledge on a steep cliff near the top of the mountain. The last transmission from the pilot, Mark Lundgren, was sent at 9:03 a.m. on a frequency used by all the tour companies. He reported he was on the north face of the mountain and had one more spot to visit before coming back to Lihue Airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday.
The 28-year-old helicopter, owned and operated by Jack Harter Helicopters, was reported missing at 9:30 a.m., and its wreckage was spotted by another tour company pilot about noon roughly 4,300 feet above the base of the mountain.
Yesterday morning, three bodies were recovered, all of them tourists, according to Casey Riemer, general manager of Jack Harter Helicopters.
Fire Department rescue crews were then stymied most of the day by the weather. A fourth body was brought out just before sundown.
The Fire Department is hoping it will be able to recover the last body today. Weather conditions are forecast to deteriorate with thunderstorms likely tomorrow. Rain is forecast through Tuesday. The storm may slow down the investigation of the crash.
Fire Battalion Chief Bob Kaden said the Harter helicopter came to rest on a narrow but relatively flat spot on the slope, but rescue helicopters had to land about 1,000 feet below the crash to wait for clouds to part so they could drop workers in with a long cable.
The FAA said weather at the crash site Wednesday morning was not severe, with visibility of 10 miles, moderate winds and scattered clouds.
Both Wayne Pollack, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board from Los Angeles, and Gino Rezzonico, chief FAA inspector in Honolulu, arrived on Kauai yesterday. Pollack said three more investigators would join him today.
After CNN aired a report about the latest crash late Wednesday, inquiries from friends and relatives of visitors to the island have been continuous.
Cyndi Ozaki, Kauai County's media relations chief, gave all radio stations on the island a public service announcement aimed at tourists, requesting the stations to read it as often as possible. It asked all visitors on the island to phone home and tell relatives they are OK.
The job of positively identifying victims and notifying next of kin has been given to the Kauai Police Department. The identification part has been relatively easy, but the notifications have not.
"In one case we have next-of-kin information, but we have been unable to contact the people," said Police Chief George Freitas.
"In another case we have no next-of-kin information at all. Detectives entered that victim's hotel room late yesterday to search for anything that would indicate who should be called.
"I sympathize completely with everyone who has contacted us to inquire about their loved ones," Freitas said. "Four years ago, I knew my son was at Sacred Falls (on May 9, 1999, when a rockslide killed eight people). I could only stand it for so long before I called the Honolulu Police Department, and they told me he was not among the victims."
Similarly, Kauai police are telling people who inquire if the people they are concerned about are not among the victims.
"We know of no connection between that name and this incident," is what they are being told.
Riemer said Lundgren had been flying for the company since 1995. He is survived by his wife, Diane, and three grown sons.
The pilot had a clean safety record, according to the FAA.
Riemer was quoted yesterday in the Star-Bulletin as saying that his pilots were not immediately informed that Lundgren's aircraft was missing. However, yesterday he said they were told immediately.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
