Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : AT THE SCENE : Marine Copter From Tustin Crashes in Desert

For the second time this month a Tustin-based Marine Corps helicopter crashed in the desert, but unlike the Jan. 8 crash that killed all five crewmen, the four crew members aboard the CH-53D Sea Stallion aircraft survived without serious injury.

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

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

Chief Warrant Officer Tim Bennett, spokesman for the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, said that the air crewmen aboard Thursday’s flight were “very lucky--very, very lucky” given the twisted and distorted shape of the helicopter’s cockpit after it fell to the desert floor.

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.

Chase was treated and released after the crash, then readmitted to Yuma Regional Medical Center later that night with internal injuries. A hospital spokesman on Saturday said that he was in good condition.

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 on 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, adding that it was too early to say what may have caused the crash.

The CH-53D, nicknamed the Sea Stallion, is a less powerful model of the controversial, accident-plagued CH-53E Super Stallion that killed the five crewman earlier this month. The military and Sikorsky Aircraft Co. 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.

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

The Jan. 8 crash of the Tustin-based CH-53E Super Stallion at the Salton Sea Test Range in Imperial Valley is under investigation by the Marine Corps.

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