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Copter wreck found
Overcast conditions delay recovery
operations but all five aboard
are believed to be dead
PORT ALLEN, Kauai » Weather permitting, rescue crews were expected to return today to the wreckage of a tour helicopter that apparently crashed into a fern-covered cliff in south Kauai with five people on board.
Kauai Fire Department rescuers said they did not expect anyone survived the crash. Debris was scattered upwards of the impact site on a near-vertical cliff about 3,000 feet above sea level, suggesting the pilot tried to pull up just before impact, rescuers said.
"Everything was charred and the ferns all around it had burned. It looked like a bad bonfire," said Kauai Fire Department rescue specialist Ehren Edwards, who saw the wreckage from the air. "He (the pilot) basically went right into the mountain."
A Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter located the wreckage of the Bell 206B helicopter, operated by Bali Hai Helicopter Tours, at 2 p.m. yesterday about eight miles north of its home base at Port Allen.
The helicopter took off Friday afternoon for an hourlong circle-island tour and was likely near the end of its flight when it crashed, officials said.
Edwards said the crash was about 200 feet below a ridgeline, which rescuers may have to descend to get to the craft today.
Officials declined to release the identities of those aboard the craft. However, Kauai Fire Department spokeswoman Cyndy Mei Ozaki did say that two of the passengers were a couple from Germany.
The other two passengers were a 35-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman from the mainland. Ozaki said the parents of the woman were believed to have taken the same helicopter tour Friday, but earlier in the afternoon.
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Coast Guard Lt. Danny Shaw said the helicopter's pilot was formerly with the Indian air force and had been flying solo tours with Bali Hai for about two months after a one-month training period on Kauai.
Bali Hai Helicopter Tours, which is based in Hanapepe, declined to comment yesterday on the crash or those onboard. The tour company has been in business since 1986 -- flying several sightseeing tours a day -- and has never had a fatal crash.
The downed craft did not have an electronic locator transmitter, which Shaw said is required for most tour operators and may have helped rescuers find the helicopter faster.
He said Bali Hai had a Federal Aviation Administration waiver from the transmitter regulation.
Kauai Fire Department officials said the area where the helicopter was found was covered with dense clouds earlier in the day, and not visible from above.
Edwards said he had about a minute to survey the crash before the thick clouds closed back in. About 5 p.m. yesterday, both the fire department and Coast Guard suspended operations, saying the clouds near the crash site had shut down hopes of getting to the helicopter before sunset.
"It's not safe for our personnel to be dropped in there," Ozaki said.
Shaw said in a news conference yesterday that the tour helicopter left Port Allen about 4 p.m. Friday and was scheduled to return an hour later, after completing a tour that flew over the Na Pali coast, Hanalei and near Mount Waialeale.
The helicopter, which was mostly white with a prominent rainbow design, was last spotted halfway through its flight by someone in a radar tower at Kokee State Park, Shaw said.
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National Weather Service forecaster Maureen Ballard said satellite images showed clouds were over the area where the craft went down Friday afternoon, which may have affected visibility from the helicopter.
FAA officials notified the Coast Guard at 6 p.m. Friday that the helicopter had not returned to Port Allen and was presumed down. A Coast Guard and Kauai Fire Department search started just after 6 p.m. and was called off about 8:30 p.m. because of low visibility.
At sunrise yesterday, the search resumed with a Coast Guard C-130 and HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, and Department of Defense and Kauai Fire Department helicopters. More than eight private helicopter tour operators also helped in the search.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Nicole Charnon said she expected to fly to Kauai last night to gather maintenance and other records on the helicopter.
She said she would also consult with the Kauai Fire Department to determine whether investigators could hike to the helicopter's wreckage site, or whether the craft would have to be airlifted elsewhere for an examination.
FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the agency would also do its own investigation, which would start as soon as the agency's personnel get to Kauai.
NTSB records show Bali Hai bought the helicopter in 1989. It was built 11 years earlier, according to the NTSB.
Shaw had no details on the craft's maintenance records, and the NTSB did not show it to have been involved in any other crashes.
On Kauai yesterday, most tour operators put their businesses on hold to help in the search.
Chuck DiPiazza, owner of Air Kauai Helicopters, said two of his helicopters were in the air for more than 10 hours trying to locate the craft.
"It's a small industry," he said. "We're all competitors. But when something like this happens, we certainly all band together here to do everything that's possible."
Heli USA Airways also helped in the search. John Dower, vice president of the company's sales and marketing, said all of the island's tour operators are saddened by the crash.
"Our condolences go out to ... (the families) of the pilot and the passengers," he said.
