ROD THOMPSON / RTHOMPSON@STARBULLETIN.COM
Melinda Shiraki, wife of Honolulu paramedic Mandy Shiraki, who died in the Big Island air ambulance plane crash, said she was able to smile yesterday because she still draws strength from her husband. Her stepson Matt fought back tears.
Wreckage found
Rescue crews recover the bodies
of two paramedics and the pilot
of a downed air ambulance planeKilled in crash
After two days of searching the Big Island, rescuers yesterday found the wreckage of a Hawaii Air Ambulance plane that crashed in a heavily forested area on the slopes of Mauna Kea, killing two paramedics and the pilot.
Coast Guard helicopters found the bodies of Mandy Shiraki, 47, fellow paramedic Joseph Daniel Villiaros, 39, and pilot Ron Laubacher, 38, yesterday morning with the remains of their Cessna 414A aircraft at the 3,600-foot elevation, about 22 miles northwest of Hilo.
The plane was reported missing about 3 a.m. Saturday after failing to make a 1:50 a.m. arrival at Hilo Airport to pick up a patient for transport to Honolulu.
"Words cannot express the tremendous sense of loss that we all feel here," said company Medical Director Dr. Mitchel Rosenfeld. "Danny, Mandy and Rod were among Hawaii Air Ambulance's finest. They were all exceptional emergency rescue professionals. They were all heroes."
Coast Guard crewmen flying a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter yesterday picked up the faint signal from the plane's electronic locating transmitter at 9 a.m., about the same time a Civil Air Patrol crew did. They confirmed sighting debris at 9:48 a.m.
After searching from sunup, the helicopter crew was just about three-quarters through flying a zigzag pattern in a 10-by-15-square-mile area that had been searched by a previous crew when they picked up the weak tone."It was almost luck our search pattern had us going over that beacon," said Lt. Kevin Quilliam, one of the helicopter's two pilots.
Without the beacon, "we probably wouldn't have found it," he said.
The transmitter, set off by impact, is supposed to be heard several miles away but was not working properly, Quilliam said.
"This particular beacon, you had to be right on top of it," Quilliam said, estimating the signal was transmitting about a half-mile.
Searches on Saturday and Sunday were hampered by bad weather. But with sunlight bathing the area yesterday, searchers could see a swath cut by the plane through a plantation of eucalyptus trees, said Hawaii County Fire Department helicopter pilot Paul Darryl.
The slim, arrow-straight trees reaching about 40 feet high were planted in rows within six feet of each other.
There was no evidence of a fire where the Cessna went down, but the shattered remains did not look like an airplane, Darryl said.
Petty Officer Scott Gordon, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, noticed an area of trees that did not look right.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii Air Ambulance President Mlchael Yamamoto, left, Medical Director Mitchel Rosenfeld and chief pilot Rob Sweet talked yesterday to the news media.
"The tops of them were sheared off, and the leaves were a different color," he said.
The trail of broken branches ran a mere 100 yards, Quilliam said. They spotted bits of white wreckage, each the size of a piece of paper.
"It was so thick, the branches and leaves just covered over the wreck site," Quilliam said.
The site was 3.6 miles northwest of upland Umikoa Village, headquarters of the former Kukaiau Ranch.
The village, consisting of offices, a meeting hall and employee housing, is six miles uphill from the town of Paauilo on the Hamakua Coast north of Hilo.
Lying on the side of Mauna Kea, the land rises steeply from the coast to the village.
The elevation where the plane was found indicates that it had descended from 5,900 feet, its altitude when it last made radio contact three miles from Waimea Airport.
Officials theorized the plane had been avoiding bad weather when it deviated from the usual flight route along the coast.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board, assisted by the Federal Aviation Administration, were expected to begin investigating the cause of the crash today.
RONEN ZILBERMAN / RZILBERMAN@STARBULLETIN.COM
Coast Guard air mechanic Chad Oberholzer, left, and pilot Lt. Kevin Quilliam recalled yesterday how they found the Hawaii Air Ambulance plane missing since early Saturday.
Fire Department personnel hiking to the area carried bodies from the crash site on stretchers yesterday for transportation to Hilo Hospital, where autopsies will be scheduled.
Hawaii Air Ambulance officials would not comment yesterday on the pilot's flying record or the 26-year-old aircraft's maintenance record, citing the investigation.
The pilot, Laubacher, had been with the company for four years and had flown for five years in Hawaii, chief pilot Rob Sweet said.
Laubacher was an experienced pilot with 8,000 hours of flying time, considered high, and he flew on the mainland prior to his arrival in Hawaii.
Sweet said the company makes decisions to fly in difficult weather conditions on a flight-by-flight basis.
The 12:30 a.m. flight was not unusual since the 100-employee company operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
This was the 25-year-old company's first accident with any injuries or fatalities, and only the second major accident. The other was in 1999 when a plane's nose gear collapsed during a hard landing with no injuries.
The company, with about 15 pilots and a fleet of four other identical twin-engine Cessna 414A planes, is continuing operations as normal.
Sweet said the company maintains its planes under an FAA-approved maintenance program, and would not comment on whether the plane had been involved in a previous accident.
NTSB records show a plane with the identical registration number, N5637C, experienced engine failure in 1981 on the mainland and suffered minor damage.
Star-Bulletin reporter Rosemarie Bernardo contributed to this report.
BACK TO TOP |
Killed in crash
Mandy Shiraki
Age: 47Home: Waianae
Career: A Honolulu Emergency Medical Services district chief; worked for EMS for nearly three decades. Got more than 75 commendation letters from residents; also taught at Kapiolani Community College.
Quote: "He has saved and touched so many lives. It was his passion." -- Wife Melinda Shiraki
J. Daniel Villiaros
Age: 39Home: Mililani
Career: Firefighter at Waiau Fire Station. Firefighter for 5 1/2 years after serving nine years as a paramedic. Awarded department's Medal of Valor for disarming crystal methamphetamine user during medical call. Also, surf instructor at Hawaiian Fire Surf School.
Quote: "It's a tragic loss for the whole Fire Department." -- Fire Chief Attilio Leonardi.
Ron Laubacher
Age: 38Home: Waikiki
Career: Pilot for Hawaii Air Ambulance Service for four years; had more than 8,000 flight hours in Hawaii and mainland.
Quote: "He'll be sorely missed. All the employees were really traumatized by what happened." -- Rob Sweet, Hawaii Air Ambulance Service
