Federal officials to begin
probing copter wreckage
LIHUE » Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board will begin sifting today through the wreckage of the Bali Hai Helicopter Tours Jet Ranger that slammed into the side of a mountain Sept. 24, killing all five people aboard.
The Kauai Fire Department's rescue helicopter was scheduled to return to the crash site today and tomorrow to try to locate many key parts that are still missing.
Meanwhile, Kauai County released the names yesterday of four of the five victims but gave no information about them.
The pilot was identified as Shankar Tummala, 39. His address was listed only as Kauai.
However, NTSB lead investigator Nicole Charnon confirmed an earlier Coast Guard report that Tummala was a former Indian military pilot.
Charnon said the pilot had about 4,000 hours of rotary wing experience, of which 126 hours were on Jet Rangers, all on Kauai. He had been on Kauai only a short time, she said.
She said Tummala received civilian helicopter training in Detroit, and his wife and at least one child were still living in Michigan at the time of the crash. His wife arrived on Kauai yesterday.
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Kauai police also identified Willy Braun, 59, and Heike Braun, 38, both of Germany. County spokeswoman Cyndi Ozaki said she did not know where in Germany they were from or how they were related.
Also officially identified was Tamara Zytkowski, 30, of Avon, Ohio. Her family had made her name public early this week, and her parents and sister were on Kauai at the time of the crash.
Kauai police did not identify the fifth victim, Zytkowski's boyfriend, but his family made the name public earlier in the week. He was Thomas Huemmer, 36, also of Avon. His body was pinned under the wreckage and recovered yesterday.
Charnon said she expected to be joined by two other NTSB investigators, one an expert on Jet Ranger helicopters and the other a "human factors" expert who will study the last 72 hours of the pilot's life. Investigators from manufacturers of the helicopter and its engine are to participate in the probe.
Most of the wreckage was retrieved yesterday by a contract crew from Pacific Helicopters of Maui, but a great many pieces remain scattered on the mountain or buried in the deep mud, Charnon said.
The pieces that were retrieved were taken to a hangar at Lihue Airport.
"We don't have the tail rotor," Charnon said. "We're missing one of the main rotor blades. We do have the instrument panel, but we don't have the collective, the cyclic or the stick (the pilot's means of controlling the aircraft) or any of the seat cushions."
Charnon said she plans to look into the fact that three tour helicopters have crashed into mountains on the windward side of Kauai since 1998.
She said she also might make recommendations concerning the lack of a requirement for an emergency locator transmitter on helicopters. The requirement applies only to fixed-wing aircraft, she said, although many helicopters carry them voluntarily. The Bali Hai helicopter had no such device.
