Crashed helicopter recovered from Pearl Harbor
SHAWN WINRICH VIA AP
In this image taken from video provided by Shawn Winrich, a helicopter crashes near Pearl Harbor on Thursday. The private helicopter with five people aboard crashed and sunk into the water, leaving a teenage passenger in critical condition.
CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / CRUSSELL@STARADVERTISER.COM
A crane truck this afternoon lifted the helicopter, which crashed offshore from the Pearl Harbor visitor’s center on Thursday. The salvage operation took about one hour to complete.
Salvage crews successfully recovered a helicopter that crashed in Pearl Harbor near the USS Arizona Memorial visitor’s center.
Civilian divers from Pacific Diving Industries attached and inflated two lift bags to the downed helicopter Friday afternoon so it could be floated and taken to the Hotel Pier 6 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
Another local company, Advanced Towing and Recovery, lifted the helicopter out of the water. The salvage operations began at 1 p.m. and took about an hour.
The helicopter was taken to a Genesis Aviation hangar at the airport where the National Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation.
The Genesis Aviation tour helicopter, carrying five people, crashed in about 10 feet of water, just offshore of the movie theater at the visitor center at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
Amateur video shows the Bell 206 helicopter, with five people aboard, heading toward shore and attempting to maintain level flight at an altitude of about 50 feet before pancaking into the near-shore waters, its blades churning sea spray before the aircraft quickly rolls over.
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Honolulu city paramedics took a 15-year-old boy, who was visiting from Canada, to Pali Momi Medical Center in critical condition. Two other family members also are hospitalized at Pali Momi. Another family member was treated and released.
Federal emergency crews took a fifth person to Tripler Army Medical Center.
Radio communication between the Honolulu air traffic control tower and the pilot of the helicopter suggest that whatever went wrong happened quickly.
At 10:22 a.m., according to a recording of the air traffic control conversations provided by liveATC.net, the pilot tells the controller he is near the south ramp at Ford Island.
Seconds later, the pilot issues a distress call: “Tower. Chopper 8. I think I’m going down.”
“Chopper 8, Roger. You’re east of Ford Island right,” the controller replies.
The pilot’s response can’t be understood.
The tower tries to reach the helicopter again, but there is no response.
The air traffic controller then asks another aircraft to fly toward Ford Island to see if they can spot the helicopter.
A preliminary report on the crash is expected in 10 days. Another report on the cause of the crash should be released within 12 to 18 months.
The Federal Aviation Administration said its databases showed no previous accidents, incidents or closed enforcement actions for the helicopter company and its owner Jeffrey Gebhard.
The World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument is partially open today.
The theater, which shows a film depicting the events leading to the 1941 Japanese attack, and Navy boat trips to the USS Arizona Memorial remained suspended this afternoon, but will reopen Saturday, the park service said.
However, the visitor center grounds, museums, snack shop and bookstore are open. In addition, other normal visitor operations — Historic Sites: the Battleship Missouri the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and the Pacific Aviation Museum — resumed after being closed on Thursday.
10 responses to “Crashed helicopter recovered from Pearl Harbor”
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Commercial airlines of all ilk are notorious for the absence of thorough pre-flight inspections of aircraft. Most of them just gas and go and play the odds.
You have no clue what you’re talking about.
Yes. You’d think that if they were so notorious and oversight so slipshod that we’d be reading about accidents every day.
Got that right.
retire – Fails to understand all work work must be done by A&P licensed mechanics, all maintenance done IAW FAA and the aircraft manufacturer, must carry the required liability insurance, meet all standards for passenger carrying aircraft, pilot trained and certified to all FAA pilot standards.
retire = Rookie poster………..
Nobody wants to end up being sued.
Which is why I never fly ilk airlines.
Next time, stay in Disneyland.
Bless those who helped rescue the passengers and crew. This perhaps shows why it’s important to carry a folding knife. You never know when it might come in handy.
I heartily agree. Unfortunately, TSA would frown upon you taking one aboard the chopper, and the Rangers at the Valor in the Pacific Park would do the same. And they’re feds, so I wouldn’t entertain the thought of trying to secret one somewhere on my person (but, maybe someone whose going along with me…./)
The liveatc.net recording is pretty good (better than the youtube recording linked here). To listen to it from the liveatc.net homepage, look to the far left of the page for “ATC Audio Archives” (a little above the Twitter/Facebook logos) and click on that. On the page it takes you to, the date is the 18th, the feed is PHNL Tower (scroll down a bit further than 3/4 of the way) and the time is 2000-2030Z (we are 10 hours behind UTC). Click submit.
You can scroll the time to 20:00 or 21:00 to get a running start, and to hear how “out of the blue” the call comes in. At 20:20 (10:20:20 HST) the controller gives the winds as coming from 050 degrees at 15 knots, gusting to 22 knots. She continues working other aircraft until 22:17 when the helicopter involved (callsign Chopper 8) comes up with his location and intentions (“Chopper 8, Ford Island, for the South Ramp”…there is no “South Ramp of Ford Island”, which the writer would know, if they ever listened to local ATC broadcasts. The South ramp is off of Lagoon Dr. and is where the civil aviation hangers are. Helicopters also land in that area.) She acknowledges him and tells him “Hold over the prison”, which tells the pilot to continue East bound from Ford Island, to the Federal Correctional Center and hold there for additional directions (the “prison” is a holding point for choppers, as is the East concourse. They would wait there for other traffic to clear the runways so they can proceed across the runways to the South ramp).
About 13 seconds later at 22:40 the “I think I’m going down” call comes in. It’s too bad that there isn’t video of what was going on in the tower at this point. The controller you hear on the radio is one part of a well trained team of professionals who each have an area of responsibility and how they come together within seconds to respond and work the situation is a testament to the skill and training of these individuals. At 22:57 the unreadable transmission from Chopper 8 is heard. By 23:55 (10:23:55 HST) the controller has regained situational awareness (you can hear it in her voice) and asks a Cessna Citation (callsign TN82A) who has just departed runway 4L on the Red Hill departure to look for Chopper 8 who they can no longer raise on the radio. He is right on top of the area in question and advises that he “is looking”.
At this point, a truism that all of these types of communicators (ATC controllers, first responder dispatchers, etc) are well aware of, but many people don’t think about, rears it’s head…Just because things aren’t going well doesn’t mean life doesn’t go on…Her team prioritizes their responsibilities and she starts working the other aircraft on her freq waiting to land and depart. She manages to get another helicopter in the area (callsign V3) to also check around Ford Island. At this point, the feed ends. If you click on the 2030-2100Z time, you can hear both 82A and V3 working the area, until Air1 (HFD’s chopper) comes up on the freq at Red Hill (10:33:40). At 10:37:09, it appears that the tower is getting info from elsewhere as the controller tells Air1 that they have reports that Chopper 8 is in the water.
I’ll be the first to admit that I gas government workers, but there are some who do their jobs extremely well, as this team did. Let’s face it, not everyone can do the job that this controller and her team did. The one of the worst possible scenarios for her profession came out of nowhere, with no warning, and she was able to keep her emotions in check, revert quickly to her training and overcome the overload. It’s a box she didn’t want to have to deal with, but she was able to check it off. I would be happy to buy her a beer if I ever met her.
As an aside, as you listen to the recording, you’ll hear her making loose calls for Chopper 8, trying to regain comms. It’s sad to think that at that moment bystanders and a Federal LEO are trying desperately to free the kid from his seatbelt while upside down under water. At least there were survivors. I’ve heard other comms like this where no one ever answered back, cause they were all gone.
The concern of the other pilots is also very evident.