3 Killed in Navy Helicopter Crash Off Oregon

A San Diego-based Navy helicopter plunged into the ocean Sunday 30 miles west of Oregon and the three crew members are presumed dead.

The Navy SH-60B Seahawk plummeted into the ocean at 7:30 p.m. Sunday as it tried to make an emergency landing on the guided missile frigate Crommelin. The accident occured while the helicopter and Crommelin were participating in a joint United States-Canadian anti-submarine warfare exercise.

The crew members were pilot Lt. Cmdr. Paul K. Miller, 36, of Elgin, Ill.; co-pilot Ensign Timothy E. Hanusin, 27, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and radar operator Petty Officer 2nd Class William R. Nolte, 25, of Minneapolis, Minn. All three lived in San Diego.

“We lost three very good and talented people,” said Ken Mitchell, a Navy spokesman for the North Island Naval Air Station, where the helicopter and crew were based. “Any time we lose a life, it’s like you lose part of the family.”

Four Navy ships, one Canadian naval ship and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter searched the area Sunday. More ships and aircraft joined the effort Monday before the search was abandoned at sunset.

The accident was the first fatal helicopter crash in 1990 for the San Diego base, Mitchell said. In 1989, there were three helicopter accidents; two of them were fatal. One man was killed in each of those two accidents.