Four county firefighters worked quickly late today afternoon to retrieve the bodies before sundown, and before the weather changed. An Army Black Hawk helicopter carried the first body out shortly before 4 p.m. to an abandoned airstrip where a van from a local mortuary stood by.

The Black Hawk, unable to land, dropped the firefighters atop the ridge to make their way through thick vegetation down to the crash site. The helicopter then used a line to lifted out the victims in body bags one at a time, said Cyndi Ozaki, spokeswoman for Kauai County.

It appeared the tour helicopter had slid down from the point where it crashed into the mountain, although Ozaki could not say how far.

On board the privately operated tour helicopter were the pilot, a 36-year-old man, a 30-year-old woman and a German couple, officials said.

Names of the victims were not immediately released. But The Morning Journal newspaper in Lorain, Ohio, reported today that one of the passengers was Thomas J. Huemmer, a lawyer from Avon, Ohio, and that the woman was his girlfriend.

Huemmer's father, Frank Huemmer of Brecksville, Ohio, told the newspaper that his son and his girlfriend, whom he did not identify, were vacationing with the woman's parents.

The recovery effort had been hampered by cloud cover, rain and wind, as well as the remote location. Yesterday, winds up to 60 mph prevented helicopters from lowering rescue workers to the site.

The helicopter operated by Bali Hai Helicopter Tours smashed into the side of the mountain and burned about a mile north of Kapalaoa Point on Friday afternoon.

The wreckage is about 2,700 feet up, on a 60 degree angle slope in an area that officials described as very muddy and rocky, where 10-foot trees are stunted by the wind.

It was a few miles from the site where five people were killed in July 2003 when a tour helicopter operated by a different company crashed south of the towering 5,143-foot Mount Waialeale, the highlight of many helicopter tours. More than 100 helicopter tours a day fly over Kauai, an island of lush greenery and rugged mountains and coastline inaccessible by road.

The Black Hawk was sent from the Army's 68th Medical Company at Schofield Barracks on Oahu. County officials had requested the heavier aircraft after the county's own Hughes 500 helicopter had difficulty negotiating the strong winds on Sunday.

Although authorities had not confirmed whether the pilot and his four passengers were killed, they noted that the aircraft burst into flames upon impact, was burned beyond recognition and that no sign of life was visible from the air.

"It appeared it basically ran right into the mountain and burned," fire rescue specialist Ehren Edwards said.

The wreckage was located Saturday but cloud cover and darkness prevented rescuers from immediately getting to the site.

A Coast Guard helicopter found the Bell 206B aircraft belonging to Bali Hai in the mountainous area about eight miles north of its home base at Port Allen, the Coast Guard said.

The pilot, who formerly flew with India's air force, has flown tours for the past two months and had more than 4,000 hours of helicopter time, Coast Guard Lt. Danny Shaw said.

The helicopter was reported missing Friday afternoon after it failed to return from a one-hour tour at its scheduled time, about 5 p.m. The Coast Guard began its search about an hour later, but suspended the search around 8:30 p.m.

No emergency locator transmitter was required aboard the craft, officials said.

Bali Hai purchased the helicopter in 1989. It had been built 11 years earlier, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.