KAHULUI, Maui » Just days ago, Pennsylvania resident David Abel was awaiting the return of his son Michael and his son’s new bride, Nicole, after their two-week honeymoon in Hawaii.
Now, Abel said their families are waiting for the bodies of the two to be returned to Pittsburgh for burial.
The couple, married Nov. 5, were among five people killed Thursday in a Blue Hawaiian Helicopters crash on Molokai. Also killed were the pilot, Nathan Cline, 30, of Maui, and a Canadian couple from Ontario.
The five were on a tour of west Maui and Molokai when the aircraft crashed in the hills behind Kilohana Elementary School.
Authorities said families of the victims have been notified but the names of the Canadian couple are being withheld pending positive identification.
The bodies were taken to Maui on Friday.
An NTSB investigator was on Molokai gathering information Saturday and took a look at the wreckage and crash site, which is at an elevation of about 1,000 feet.
Abel, in a telephone interview from Pittsburgh, said Michael and Nicole were doing well in their jobs as mechanical engineers for Westinghouse Nuclear.
"They were beautiful people," Abel said. "They were good kids."
They had met at work and had looked forward to their first trip to Maui and Hawaii island, he said.
"They had this whole thing planned for 10 months," Abel said.
Abel added that he hopes the investigation will bring some improvements in safety measures if that is what is called for.
"Apparently, they’ve had problems in the past," he said.
A Blue Hawaiian crash in Maui’s Iao Valley on July 21, 2000, killed all seven people on board, and the National Transportation Safety Board blamed the crash mainly on misjudgment by the pilot, who failed to stay away from cloudy, mountainous terrain. The board said the pilot made an "inadequate decision" when he decided to fly by visual flight rules instead of by instruments.
Conditions on Molokai on Thursday also were cloudy and rainy.
Blue Hawaiian official Patti Chevalier said that after the 2000 crash, the company installed a "terrain awareness system" that allows a pilot to view a map of the area where he’s flying if he "gets into weather."
Chevalier described Cline as a "very professional pilot."
She said the company is cooperating fully with authorities in the investigation.
"All of us want to know what happened," she said.
She added that her company carries about 160,000 people on tours a year.
Wren Wescoatt said he was inside his house in east Molokai on Thursday when he heard a series of loud noises that made him think his solar panel had fallen from his roof.
"It sounded like a whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, bang," recalled Wescoatt, a retired firefighter.
Another resident with experience with helicopters said she could hear it autorotating — a maneuver done when a chopper is trying to make an emergency landing. She couldn’t see the helicopter because trees obscured her view, she said, but then she heard a loud bang and saw plumes of smoke.
Wescoatt said heavy squalls lasting about five minutes were moving through the area before the crash.
Residents said occasional showers are typical on Molokai this time of year.
Hawaii News Now video: NTSB investigates deadly Molokai crash
