Marine Helicopter From Tustin Crashes in Desert; 4 Survive

A Marine Corps CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter based in Tustin crashed in the California desert near Yuma, Ariz., Thursday afternoon, but all four crew members survived, apparently without serious injury.

“The helicopter is really broken up, and the air crewmen are very lucky--very, very lucky,” said Chief Warrant Officer Tim Bennett, spokesman for the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station where the helicopter crew was training.

“There’s one big heap of a (helicopter) body out there. Off to one side is the cockpit area, which is twisted and distorted. . . . There was a small amount of smoke but no fire. That’s what’s very fortunate,” Bennett said.

Friday’s was the latest in a series of crashes that have plagued three models of the CH-53 helicopter. Since 1969, all three versions--A, D and E--of the aircraft have been involved in an estimated 25 major accidents resulting in 186 deaths.

Flight Restrictions

The crashes prompted the Pentagon to issue temporary flight restrictions for the helicopters in 1985 and prompted Congress to begin an investigation last year.

Bennett said three of the helicopter crew were from the Tustin Marine Corps helicopter base: Capt. Charles C. Gentry, 32, of Indio, the pilot; Lance Cpl. Jason W. Chase, 21, of Happy Camp, Calif., the crew chief, and Cpl. Jay G. Masters, 26, of Estherville, Iowa, a crewman.

The fourth member of the crew--Capt. Anthony Z. Ctobiecki, 38, of Los Angeles, the co-pilot--was identified as a flight instructor stationed at the base in Yuma.

Bennett said the helicopter was one of two CH-53s from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462 at Tustin Marine Corps Air Station that took off from Yuma Thursday “for a routine training mission.”

As the helicopters reached an area about 18 miles northwest of Yuma and just into California, one of the helicopters--a model A or D--developed “hydraulic problems” and landed safely in the desert, Bennett said.

The second helicopter circled about 200 feet above the first but “developed problems and crashed,” Bennett said.

The crash occurred at about noon, Pacific time, he said. Late Thursday, Bennett said it was too early to say what may have caused the crash.

A Marine Corps search and rescue helicopter flew Chase and Ctobiecki to Yuma Regional Medical Center, Bennett said. Chase was treated and released, and Ctobiecki was treated for lacerations and apparently released, Bennett said.

Cuts and Bruises

“The other two were walking around” right after the crash, Bennett said. “They remained at the scene for about an hour and a half and were eventually brought back to the air station dispensary for routine checkup. One of them had some cuts and bruises.”

The crash occurred in “bleak desert” on the 1.5-million-acre training base, Bennett said.

He said crews from Tustin regularly “deploy here for a few days or a few weeks. They live out of our support facilities and get more training done here in a couple of weeks than six weeks back in Tustin.”

The CH-53D, nicknamed the Sea Stallion, is a less powerful model of the controversial, accident-plagued CH-53E Super Stallion. The military and Sikorsky Aircraft Division decided in the late 1960s that they could develop a helicopter with greater lift if they added a third engine to the Sea Stallion.

The newer E model, which can lift as much as 16 tons and carry 55 fully equipped combat troops, became the largest helicopter produced in the United States.

“There is a considerable difference between the two helicopters, the CH-53D and the CH-53E,” said Master Gunnery Sgt. Ken Long of the Marine public affairs office at Yuma. “Basically, they’re the same size, but the Super Stallion has a heavier lift capability because of the added engine.”

Before Thursday’s accident, the last recorded major accident of a CH-53D was in May, 1985, when a Sea Stallion went down into the Sea of Japan, apparently after experiencing transmission failure. Seventeen persons aboard were killed.

In March, 1984, another D model crashed into a mountain in Korea during a nighttime operation, killing 29. The probable cause of that crash was declared to be air crew error.

On Jan. 8, a Tustin-based CH-53E Super Stallion crashed at the Salton Sea Test Range in Imperial Valley killing five Marines. The craft was on a routine training mission when it crashed and burned in the desert, and the cause of that crash is under investigation by the Marine Corps.

The accident prompted Tustin city officials this week to write a letter to the Marine Corps asking that the CH-53 helicopters stop flying over populated neighborhoods in that city.