Police Copter Pickup of Pair Broke Rules, Huntington Beach Official Says

Huntington Beach city officials disclosed that they are investigating the alleged unauthorized use Wednesday of a police helicopter to transport an off-duty police pilot and his girlfriend from a Riverside County town where their car had broken down.

The police pilot who flew the approximately 100 miles to Indio over the weekend to pick up the pair and return them to Orange County tried to justify the flight by saying it was necessary for training purposes, said City Administrator Paul Cook. However, Cook added, the flight appears to have broken the rules.

“This is an isolated instance, bad judgment on the part of one or more employees,” Cook said.

Police officials must decide whether disciplinary action--including the possibility of transferring the pilot out of the elite helicopter unit--should be taken.

Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg was attending a seminar in Sacramento and could not be reached for comment. Police Capt. Merle Schneblin would only confirm that an investigation is under way and that Lowenberg might have comment upon his return Friday.

Mayor Wes Bannister said that he was concerned about the incident and planned to ask police officials to brief the City Council behind closed doors Monday.

Cook refused to identify any of the city employees involved in the incident. He said the city’s three helicopters are allowed to venture outside the city on occasion to aid other police departments and for special operations. In order to be qualified for flights outside the city, pilots are required by the Federal Aviation Administration to go on training missions to other locales.

But Cook said the weekend flight appeared to violate the rules. Pilots are not allowed use of helicopters for such purposes, he said, and the trip put the city at an insurance risk by carrying the officer’s companion, who is not a city employee.

“This is not the end of the world, but this is a stupid decision that someone made,” Cook said.

Of the five Orange County police agencies that maintain helicopter patrols, Huntington Beach was the first, starting its service in 1969.

Officers in two other departments said that they believe there are sufficient rules to protect against unauthorized flights in their cities.

Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Bill Bechtel, who supervises the flights of his department’s three patrol helicopters, said “we’ve never had a problem.”

Costa Mesa’s helicopters, which also patrol Santa Ana, rarely leave either city except for occasional business flights. a

Newport Beach police spokesman Sgt. Andy Gonis said his department has a “policy in general that the helicopters are not to be used for unauthorized” purposes.