Costa Mesa : Police Cutting Copter Training Flights at Park

Police have reduced helicopter training flights over undeveloped parkland at the city’s western edge in response to complaints by a nearby resident who said the police chopper spooked his daughter’s horse and caused her to be thrown.

Capt. Tom Lazar, commander of the police patrol division, said that neither officer aboard the helicopter saw the girl or the horse when the accident was reported to have happened--about 6 p.m. June 16.

Lazar said that in the past, when one of the department’s helicopters was near the park, its pilot usually would practice an auto-rotation descent--a descent without power. Helicopter pilots practice such maneuvers in case of an actual loss of power.

Lazar said the practice site--a section of the proposed Fairview Regional Park beside the Santa Ana River--was chosen because it is unpopulated and because updrafts from the river bank aid in the training.

He said that Charles Gardner had first complained about the helicopter maneuvers before he reported his daughter being thrown. Gardner reported that the girl suffered “a minor knee injury,” Lazar said.

After Gardner reported the accident, training procedures were changed somewhat, Lazar said. Pilots now are instructed to conduct fewer maneuvers and to carefully examine the area beforehand.

Lazar said that he and Lt. Dave Brooks, who supervises the helicopter patrol, spoke with nine residents Tuesday during a meeting at the Police Department requested by Gardner.

Residents said they have noticed the cutback in training flights, but “I don’t think that they’re all completely satisfied,” Lazar said.

“Their ultimate goal is for us to choose an alternate site do this,” Lazar said. “There’s not an alternate site in the city--that’s the real problem. We’d have to go outside the city. . . . We’re going to wait and see how it goes.”