Copter Crashes Into Convoy of GIs; Pilot Dies

A helicopter pilot was killed Friday when his craft struck high-tension power lines across Interstate 15 near the Riverside County line and crashed on the freeway into a convoy of Marines returning to Camp Pendleton from the Middle East.

Witnesses said the helicopter had been tracking the nine-vehicle convoy from Norton Air Force Base near Riverside, where a contingent of Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division, had arrived by plane from Saudi Arabia.

A Border Patrol agent who witnessed the incident said the helicopter hit the lower strand of three high tension power lines, broke apart and plummeted onto the slow lanes of southbound Interstate 15.

Traffic on southbound I-15 was detoured for most of the day while Federal Aviation Administration authorities and Marine Corps security officers investigated the accident.

Agent Matt Van Gorder, 33, was watching freeway traffic near the Rainbow Valley Bridge overcrossing in the community of Rainbow--about a mile south of the Riverside County line--when he saw the helicopter. “It struck the lower strand of three power lines running east to west across the freeway and it hung there for a few seconds and then it dropped like a rock,” he said.

After the helicopter crashed, a small military vehicle ran into the craft and carried it about 100 yards before stopping, Van Gorder said. Then, both the vehicle and the helicopter burst into flames and exploded, he said.

The helicopter pilot, identified as Nobuo Nakama, no age or hometown given, was killed in the crash. No one in the convoy was injured.