Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : AT THE SCENE : 2 Helicopters Collide While Pursuing Car

It began with a police chase of a suspected car thief. When it was over, two helicopters had collided and crashed, and three men--two Costa Mesa police officers and a civilian along for the ride--were dead.

And the man whom the officers were chasing was in jail, charged with three counts of second-degree murder, one count of auto theft and one of possession of stolen property.

The helicopters from the Newport Beach and Costa Mesa police departments collided over a field near UC Irvine late Tuesday night. They had been participating in a chase of a stolen car that began in Santa Ana, continued through Newport Beach and Costa Mesa and ended in Anaheim with the arrest of Vincent William Acosta, 19, when he abandoned the stolen car he was driving.

Killed were Costa Mesa Police Officers John William Libolt and James David Ketchum, and Jeffrey Pollard, a civilian flight instructor who had never flown in a helicopter until that night.

“They died doing what they loved to do most,” said Lt. George Lorton, a 26-year-veteran of the Costa Mesa police force and a friend of both pilots.

National Transportation Safety Board officials have not yet established what caused the accident, but a preliminary investigation indicated that the skid of the smaller Newport Beach helicopter made contact with the main rotor blade of the Costa Mesa aircraft, according to Gary Mucho, chief of the agency’s Los Angeles office.

The accident was the first mid-air collision of law enforcement helicopters in Southern California. Police helicopter crews fly under visual flight rules, requiring them to watch for other aircraft. Unlike fixed-wing planes, they are not subject to FAA regulation.

Authorities said the Costa Mesa aircraft was about to hand over the pursuit of the stolen car to the Newport Beach helicopter when the two collided.

The two Newport Beach helicopter pilots, Myles Elsing and Robert Oakley, were hospitalized for treatment of injuries. Oakley was released Wednesday, and Elsing on Friday.

Police and officials from both Newport Beach and Costa Mesa defended the use of helicopters in chasing suspected criminals, saying that the tragic accident was “a fluke,” in the words of Costa Mesa Councilman Orville Amburgey, and that such chases were safer than high-speed chases on the ground.

Meg Ketchum said she was sure that if her husband “had it to do all over again, he wouldn’t change a thing. He loved flying, he just loved it.”

Libolt and Ketchum were the first police officers to die in the line of duty since Costa Mesa incorporated in 1953.

Costa Mesa police established a memorial fund for the families of the three dead men.