Pilot of Disabled Sheriff’s Copter Averts Disaster

The pilot of a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department helicopter was credited with preventing a disaster late Saturday when his aircraft lost power and crashed on the lawn of a home near Claremont, authorities said.

Pilot Rick Martindale, 31, and Deputy Douglas Dunford, 29, escaped injury when Martindale guided the disabled copter between power lines and avoided about 20 deputies who had surrounded a house in the 2900 block of Mountain Avenue, Sheriff’s Deputy Bob Stoneman said.

“He did a great job,” said Sgt. Ray Davis of the department’s aero command division. “He put it down about the only place he could.”

The only person injured in the crash was a female neighbor who was treated at the scene for debris that blew into her eye, Stoneman said.

The crash occurred at about 10:45 p.m., minutes after deputies responded to a report of a man with a gun at the residence, Stoneman said. A 15-year-old boy was taken into custody for pointing an unloaded shotgun at one of five people inside the house, Stoneman said. The boy’s name was withheld because of his age.

The helicopter was circling the location about 500 feet off the ground when it lost power, Davis said. “The pilot doesn’t really know what happened,” Davis said. “He said it just seemed to lose power and the engine just quit on him.”

Sheriff’s mechanics will try to determine what caused the apparent engine failure. The aircraft, which was demolished, was one of two Hughes 300 models in the department’s fleet of 10 helicopters, Davis said.