Coast Guard divers boarded a helicopter in San Diego to search for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast.
(Denis Poroy/ Associated Press)
Searchers in Calif. hunt for survivors after midair crash
Coast Guard divers boarded a helicopter in San Diego to search for as many as nine people off the Southern California coast.
(Denis Poroy/ Associated Press)
SAN DIEGO - The nighttime collision of a Coast Guard aircraft on a rescue mission and a Marine helicopter left nine people feared dead at sea yesterday as investigators tried to solve the mystery of how the aircrews failed to see each other in a heavily used military training area.
Military aircraft and ships searched the ocean off Southern California for any sign of the victims while investigators gathered recordings of air traffic controllers and pilot communications. The search covered 644 square miles of ocean but focused on a debris field 50 miles off San Diego.
The crash involved a Coast Guard C-130 with a seven-member crew and a Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra with two aboard as it flew in formation near the Navy’s San Clemente Island, a site with training ranges for amphibious, air, surface, and undersea warfare. It was not known whether the pilots were aware of each other before the 7:10 p.m. collision Thursday.
“A tragic event,’’ Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. “The search is still on, but it’s likely taken the lives of nine individuals.’’
The C-130 crew had survival gear aboard the aircraft, including exposure suits that could have allowed them to survive in the water for hours, Petty Officer Henry Dunphy said.
The Sacramento-based C-130 crew was looking for a man on a 12-foot motorized skiff who was reported missing after leaving Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island to reach a friend on a disabled yacht, authorities said.
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