Kauai crew recovers
first 2 bodies of crash

Family and friends identify two
victims as a couple from Ohio

LIHUE » The bodies of two of the five victims of Friday's helicopter crash were recovered yesterday by a Kauai Fire Department rescue team flown to the crash site by a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter.

The pilot and all four passengers were killed when the Bell Jet Ranger operated by Bali Hai Helicopter Tours slammed into the face of a cliff northeast of Port Allen on Friday evening. The aircraft was not carrying an emergency locator transmitter and was not found for 20 hours.

Kauai County officials have declined to identify any of the victims until all the bodies are recovered and positively identified, which could be a long process.

Family and friends identified two of the passengers as Thomas J. Huemmer, 36, a lawyer from Avon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and his girlfriend, Tamara Zytkowski, also of Avon.

Zytkowski's parents and sister were traveling with the couple and took a tour on the same helicopter shortly before the crash. Zytkowski, a registered nurse, was a supervisor at Cleveland Clinic, one of Cleveland's largest medical facilities.

"Today was a very difficult day for everyone at Cleveland Clinic," said Eileen Shields, a spokeswoman for the company.

The law firm for which Huemmer worked held a grief meeting for all of its 75 employees at the beginning of the workday yesterday, and several said prayers, a spokeswoman for the firm said.

The two other passengers were a German couple. They and the pilot have not been identified.

Efforts to reach the crash site were frustrated by clouds and high winds on both Saturday and Sunday. The Kauai Fire Department's small Hughes 500 helicopter was not able to land rescuers in the 70 mph winds.

Conditions improved yesterday, and a much larger UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from the Army's 68th Medical Company at Schofield Barracks landed four Fire Department rescue specialists near the site.

They brought back two bodies by late afternoon. The Black Hawk landed on an abandoned airstrip away from public view, and firefighters carried the body bags to a mortuary van.

Rescuers said another body was located, but it could not be recovered before nightfall. It was expected to be lifted out early today.

They also found what they believe is a foot protruding from under the helicopter's shattered fuselage, indicating another body is underneath the aircraft. Recovery of that body might have to wait until a salvage helicopter can lift the fuselage.

The body of the fifth victim was not found. Rescuers said most of the debris from the impact went up the ridge, and they were unable yesterday to look beyond the crest of the ridge.

Fire Capt. Shawn Hosaka, who led the rescue team yesterday, said late yesterday the Black Hawk lowered the four men on a cable into a ravine. They then had to make their way up a muddy 70-degree slope covered with thick fern growth.

"It was hard to get through that stuff," Hosaka said. "It was mostly mud. Mostly we had to crawl. It was horrible. Everyone's legs are still shaking from the effort."

He said he and fellow team members Lance Yamada, Roy Constantino and Ehren Edwards were tied to safety lines during the entire process.

Hosaka participated in the recovery of crash victims in both of Kauai's most recent fatal accidents, in 1998 and last year. In every case the helicopters were flying in bad weather and flew right into the sides of mountains in rugged terrain. "They were very similar," Hosaka said.

The same Army helicopter was scheduled to be back today to recover the third body that was located yesterday.