Helicopter crash was in restricted area

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — The tour helicopter that crashed Sunday killing the pilot and three passengers plummeted to the ground inside a restricted area where tour helicopters were banned because of a brush fire on the ground, according to the lead crash investigator.

It was not known today whether the location of the helicopter just inside the restricted area of more than 5,000 acres could have contributed to the crash of the Tropical Helicopters sightseeing flight.

Tealeye C. Cornejo, air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said today that investigators have not determined whether the crash was caused by mechanical failure, pilot error or some other factor.

Park Ranger Jim Gale said tour flights were banned in the area extending northeast from the Chain of Craters Road to beyond the site of what was the Kalapana Trail because park service helicopters have been shuttling water into the area to dump on the brush fire.

"They can do 10 trips an hour sometimes, they're going back and forth to get water to the fire as fast as possible," Gale said. "You just don't want to risk having a scenic helicopter get in the path of a working helicopter."

Federal officials identified the victims of the crash as pilot Russell Holliday and passengers Jody Laughman; her 13-year-old daughter, Nicole Laughman; and Jody's husband, James Thomas. The passengers were from Lake Meade in Adams County in South Central Pennsylvania.

Three loads of wreckage from the Hughes 500D from Hilo were airlifted from the crash site and taken to Hilo yesterday to prevent them from being engulfed by oncoming lava, Gale said. The lava advanced to within 50 feet of the site as the last of the debris was removed, Gale said.

Cornejo said the advancing lava forced investigators to quicken their inspection of the site where the Tropical Helicopters aircraft slammed into the ground Sunday morning and was engulfed in flames on a cliff known as Pulama Pali. The area is about two miles from Chain of Craters Road in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

The debris was taken to Hilo for storage and disassembly as part of the investigation, Cornejo said. She said she had not yet reviewed the maintenance records for the helicopter, but said it underwent a 100-hour inspection Friday, which includes maintenance of the aircraft.

Cornejo said the cockpit and passenger area of the helicopter were burned by a fire that erupted after impact, but the tail area was not burned. Two bodies were recovered outside the helicopter and two were inside, she said.

Calvin Dorn, president of K&S Helicopters, said Holliday had a wife and two young children who were preparing to move to join him in East Hawai'i before the crash. Tropical Helicopters is registered to do business in Hawai'i as K&S Helicopters Inc.

Holliday, a big man who was known by the nickname "Hoss," was a "highly experienced professional" who had completed two outside professional training programs in the past two months, Dorn said.

The York Daily Record in York, Pa., reported that Jody Laughman was visiting her brother in Hawai'i, and that the brother called family and friends in Pennsylvania to notify them of the deaths.

At 45 Sedgwick Drive, where Thomas and the Laughmans lived in Lake Meade, cars were parked in a long line on the street yesterday as friends and neighbors stopped to pay their respects.

Nicole's friends covered the garage with poster-board collages that showed pictures of Nicole smiling, posing in her basketball uniform and sitting cheek-to-cheek with a best friend.

Her peers from Bermudian Springs Middle School took turns writing sentiments in chalk on the sidewalk to the 13-year-old they called "Fluffy."

"They didn't come any finer than Nicole," said Chuck Neri, a guidance counselor at Nicole's school. Neri recalled Nicole was a good student who always wore a smile, according to the Daily Record.

Paul Schlamm, an NTSB spokesman, said there are no known witnesses to the crash.

Holliday radioed a mayday call at 9:48 a.m. Sunday, 31 minutes into the 50-minute aerial tour of the volcano.