A private helicopter made an emergency landing Tuesday in the middle of a field at the Waipio Peninsula Soccer Complex in Waipahu.

Neither of the two men on board appeared to be injured, the helicopter did not appear damaged and the soccer field looked unharmed as well.

Reggie Perry, owner of Barbers Point Aviation Serv­ice, said he and the pilot of the Robinson R44 helicopter were on their way from Kalaeloa to Honolulu, where they were to meet up with U.S. Coast Guard officials to help out with the search for another Robinson R44, which went down northwest of Molokai on Monday night.

The pilot, who would not identify himself, said they had been in the air for only several minutes when they felt the helicopter vibrate for about three seconds before the engine quit.

“So we made a precautionary landing then,” the pilot said, estimating that the helicopter was about 1,000 feet up when he began autorotation, using the freely spinning rotor blades to slow the aircraft’s descent, to land it safely.

“We were less than 4,000 feet away from (the landing site), horizontally,” said the pilot, who said he has been flying for about four years. While there were strong gusts in the area, the pilot said they did not contribute to the situation and may have helped out.

“The wind actually helps, sometimes, with these types of landings,” he said.

The helicopter is fairly new and has only about 170 hours’ flight time on it, the pilot said.

Perry and the pilot said they were volunteering to help with the Molokai search effort because that pilot is a friend of theirs. The pilot described the operator of the Molokai helicopter as “my best friend” and said he was going to try to find another helicopter to help with the search.

Strong tradewinds have gusted across the state in recent days, prompting weather officials to issue advisories of low-level turbulence and small-craft warnings. Those conditions are expected to dissipate today, according to Leigh Anne Eaton, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Nonetheless, strong wind doesn’t affect helicopters the way it does airplanes, according to Darl Evans, chief pilot with Maui-based tour company Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. The air can pass through a helicopter’s rotors, versus the fixed, rigid wings of a plane, which can produce sharp jolts in heavy winds, Evans said.

Helicopter pilots are trained to avoid turbulence, he added.

The city Department of Parks and Recreation closed fields 15 through 19 of the soccer complex Tuesday in response to the situation.

Star-Advertiser reporter Marcel Honoré contributed to this report.