A small fishing boat crew rescued a 57-year-old male pilot and two passengers seriously injured around 5 p.m. Monday when the private helicopter they were on somehow ended up on a
watery sandbar in Kaneohe Bay.
A 35-year-old woman sustained leg injuries, and a 31-year-old man had a right-arm injury. The pilot had a head laceration and right-arm injury. All three had spinal injuries and were transported to a trauma center, Dustin Malama of the Emergency Services Department said.
The Honolulu Fire Department received a call at 5:12 p.m. The first engine was on scene in less than five minutes, but by that time a roughly 17-foot fishing vessel had gotten to the occupants of the helicopter and they were on board the boat, Battalion Chief Mark Nakagawa said.
When fire personnel got out to the area, the outer edge of the sandbar was 2 to 3 feet deep, and the tide was coming down, Nakagawa said.
Preston Swann, 29, a deckhand for Kaneohe Bay Ocean Sports, said he heard a distress call and saw that it was a downed orange helicopter, went by speedboat to the site and could see people standing in chest-high water on the sandbar. By the time they arrived, emergency personnel were responding, so they left so as not to get in the way.
HFD Capt. Scot Seguirant said the helicopter was on the sandbar in Kaneohe Bay in an upright position, and there was no fire. But HFD had no information on the helicopter
or whether it made an emergency landing.
The Coast Guard got the call at 5:15 p.m. Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Amanda Wyrick said a nonmilitary helicopter landed on the sandbar.
“I don’t know why they landed there,” she said. “I don’t know that it was an emergency landing.”
The first person rescue personnel brought back to shore from the helicopter was able to walk up the boat ramp, but the other two were each carried on a board from the water, a witness said.
An HFD and a Marine Base Hawaii water safety rescue watercraft with sleds brought the three people to shore, while Emergency Medical Services personnel treated and transported the patients to The Queen’s Medical Center, fire, Coast Guard and Emergency Services officials said.
Nakagawa said that the tide was an hour from low tide.
HFD communications indicated that one of the rescue watercraft was overheating and another had to be deployed, but there was concern about the low tide.
Becca Frager, 36, of Kakaako was “out on the water paddleboarding when we heard something large” that sounded like “a loud bang,” possibly some sort of military exercises, shooting or a car crash, but could not see anything.
People on land saw the helicopter go down, and word spread quickly.
David Michelmore, 63, an avid boater, who was at a home near Lulani Street repairing a boat engine, said the homeowner ran out to report that he got a phone call that a helicopter had gone down. He couldn’t see anything, so he went to Heeia Kea Pier, where he saw the first person brought in, “who was moaning at first,” “pale white, not moving at all,” before being placed on a stretcher.
“You don’t survive a helicopter landing,” he said. “My friend Gary Galiher died a year ago. You can deploy pontoons, but if you lose an engine, a helicopter doesn’t float. I think the helicopter must have sank.”
A Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter was dispatched, and a C-130 airplane already flying was providing aerial support.
HFD also sent a helicopter to the scene.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii said it had at least one big CH-53E Super Stallion in the air assisting.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources was on scene, and officials were assessing pollution from the landing, assisting with the helicopter and securing the site.
An aging Marine Corps CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter crashed March 29, 2011, on the Kaneohe Bay sandbar, killing 22-year-old Cpl. Jonathan D. Faircloth. Three other crew members also were injured when the big helicopter made a “hard impact” landing from an altitude of about 300 feet while on a night training flight. The chopper ended up on its side.
The crash was caused by a “catastrophic mechanical failure” as pilots struggled to maintain control, an investigation concluded. The Sea Stallions were retired and replaced by newer CH-53E Super Stallions.
