PRINCEVILLE, Kaua'i — The crumpled remains of an A-Star helicopter lay in a heap near the runway at Princeville Airport after the tour copter crashed yesterday afternoon, killing the pilot and three of its six passengers.

The survivors were critically injured and being treated at hospitals last night.

Kaua'i County public information officer Mary Daubert said two of the passengers were from New York, two from California and two from Arkansas. One from each state was reported dead.

It was the fifth fatal tour helicopter crash on Kaua'i in less than four years.

The cockpit of the Heli USA Airways' A-Star that crashed yesterday was clearly smashed. The helicopter's yellow, bulbous floats — equipment now mandated after a previous fatal Heli USA crash on Kaua'i in 2005 — had been deployed. The tail boom was snapped but still attached.

The crash occurred at 3:02 p.m. after the pilot radioed to his dispatcher that he was having problems with his hydraulics system, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

Depending on the severity of the failure, a loss of hydraulic systems in some helicopters can impair a pilot's ability to use the tail rotor or other flight controls to steer and land.

The pilot, Joe Sulak, was about two miles out from Princeville and was trying to return to the airport. The copter crashed on a grassy area near a runway on the airport's northwest end.

FAA and National Transportation Safety Board inspectors will conduct "exhaustive" investigations, Gregor said.

Employees at businesses around the airport who had information about the crash said police told them to only speak to FAA or NTSB investigators.

1 DIED ON WAY TO WILCOX

Kaua'i Fire Department officials initially said the survivors included one female and three males, who were all taken to Wilcox Hospital in critical condition. They later reported that one of the passengers died en route to Wilcox Hospital.

The pilot had more than 10,000 hours flying the A-Star, Gregor said, which is "an awful lot of experience."

A pilot for a competing air tour company on Kaua'i, who did not want to be identified, said Sulak was known as "Helicopter Joe" and was the company's lead pilot.

Mike Stewart of Hanalei, who operates an activities company that sells helicopter tours on Heli USA, also knew Sulak as "Helicopter Joe."

"I had ultimate respect for the man," Stewart said. "He was a great guy."

One of the survivors was flown to The Queen's Medical Center last night and two others were undergoing surgery at Wilcox. They also would be flown to Queen's "as soon as they are able," said Wilcox spokeswoman Lanie Yukimura.

She did not identify the genders of the survivors, but said they were all adults.

After the crash, the downed helicopter sat atop its two large floats, designed for a landing at sea.

It was not clear whether the floats had been inflated before the crash or upon impact.

The entire front of the helicopter's cab was crushed and neither the instrument panel nor the seats were visible.

The tail boom was broken at the back of the cockpit.

While the tail rotor appeared intact, one of the blades of the main rotor on top of the cockpit was broken in at least two places. The two other blades of the main rotor appeared intact.

Stewart said not only did he respect the helicopter's pilot, but he has full faith in Heli USA.

"I have every confidence in these guys," he said. "I put my daughter alone on their flight."

When he heard what happened yesterday, Stewart rushed to the airport and volunteered to man the shuttered main gate at Princeville Airport, keeping curious onlookers out and letting police and other official personnel in.

'THERE WAS NO WEATHER'

Although he was not on the scene when the crash occurred, Stewart said the weather was sunny, clear and relatively calm.

"There was no weather. It was like this," he said, gesturing at a partly cloudy sky, with the Hanalei mountains misty in the distance.

Nigel Turner, chief executive officer of Las Vegas-based Heli USA, told the Associated Press that the pilot was "very experienced."

"We are in the process of notifying the families of those individuals involved and our sincere condolences goes out at this time," Turner said. "We are working with authorities to find out exactly what happened."

Turner defended the safety of his helicopters, which also fly tours in Nevada.

"The company has flown over a million passengers," Turner said. "This is our second accident in a million people."

Turner added that he would not hesitate to put his own family in his helicopters.

ENTERED MARKET IN 2000

Heli USA Airways is the largest helicopter sightseeing company in the Western United States and has operations on Kaua'i and O'ahu in Hawai'i, according to the company's Web site.

The company operates out of the Princeville, Lihu'e and Honolulu airports with a fleet of A-Star helicopters. According to TraveAge West, Heli USA entered the Hawai'i market in December 2000 when it purchased the assets of Hawaiian Helicopters on Kaua'i. In 2003 it expanded with O'ahu tour flights.

Heli USA also flies over Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, carrying more than 120,000 people annually on its tours.

Helicopter tours represent one of Hawai'i's most popular attractions.

About one in 10 tourists who visited Hawai'i in 2005 — or more than 750,000 passengers — flew an air tour, according to tourism officials.

Each paid about $200 for a typical 45-minute ride.

The previous fatal helicopter crash in Hawai'i occurred on Kaua'i on Christmas Day 2005 when a private McDonnell Douglas 369FF helicopter fighting a brushfire for the Kaua'i Fire Department hit small trees and water at the De Mello reservoir near Lihu'e.

The helicopter's lone occupant, the pilot, was killed.

The Islands' last fatal crash of a tour helicopter occurred three months before, on Sept. 23, 2005, and also involved Heli USA.

The company's Aerospatiale A-Star 350 helicopter ditched into the ocean off Ha'ena, Kaua'i, after encountering severe weather.

Three of the six people aboard died before they could get out. Two drowned and a third died of cardiac arrest caused by near drowning.

The crash resulted in an NTSB review last month that criticized the Heli USA pilot and FAA practices in Hawai'i.

The NTSB determined that the probable cause of the 2005 accident was the pilot's decision to continue flying into adverse weather conditions.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com and Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.