A Revered Pilot’s Tearful Takeoff Into Retirement

Behind his imposing dark sunglasses, tears flowed from the eyes of the normally reserved David L’Heureux. This from the man who, with his helicopter, has rescued lost hikers, tracked down thieves and even saved a boy from a bear.

It was L’Heureux’s final training session with the search and rescue team at the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station as the men gathered around his helicopter for the last time. It was time for the veteran pilot’s big farewell speech.

“I’ve enjoyed working with. . . ,” he said before breaking off and changing his mind. “I better skip it or I’ll never get through this training.”

The 56-year-old L’Heureux, who will have his wings retired today, stepped back from the group of longtime colleagues and fresh recruits waiting to be instructed on how to ride on the plank-like skid of a helicopter.

The volunteers stood in silent respect for L’Heureux, a sheriff’s deputy for 30 years. Then, without much ceremony, the training continued.

L’Heureux’s feats are legendary. And among his colleagues, so is he. He was the pilot who could catch a fleeing robber on a motorcycle at speeds of more than 100 m.p.h., maneuver his chopper into a steep and narrow canyon, or rescue a lost person in minutes after an unsuccessful search by rescuers on foot.

“Flying cops are very invaluable, especially in the Sheriff’s Department,” L’Heureux said. “Besides, it’s kind of difficult to get away from someone who is watching you in the air.”

After a brief rookie stint at the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail, he left the department for a year to learn to fly and get a pilot’s license.

When he came back, as a deputy in the prisoner transportation unit, L’Heureux made a quick stop at the Lennox station in the South Bay before landing at the Newhall station.

In the 1970s, much of the Santa Clarita Valley was rural. L’Heureux patrolled an area with field upon field of carrots, onions and corn, with a few small ranches near the hills. As the community grew, the department decided the area needed its own helicopter, and L’Heureux was soon able to blend his hobby with his profession.

Starting in 1975, he rode in the helicopter as an observer. By 1983, he joined the Aero Bureau as one of 16 pilots and was awarded one of the most coveted jobs in the department, the sole pilot for all of the 630-square-mile Santa Clarita Valley.

It is here the tales begin to flow.

There was the time when he saw marijuana growing in someone’s back yard. When the suspects heard the chopper, several men dashed inside the house to retrieve shears and, as L’Heureux watched, they chopped down the plants and threw them over the back wall of the property. But by the time the men tried to escape, L’Heureux had called for help and deputies were waiting for them.

There was the time, while he was training his replacement pilot, Deputy Ed Jahn, that L’Heureux spotted a man dumping a truckload of dirt in a remote canyon of the valley.

L’Heureux radioed for help and two squad cars in the area raced to the scene. Scared, the man ran back to his truck and charged the landing aircraft, narrowing missing it as L’Heureux quickly lifted the chopper.

“After he was arrested, the deputies asked him why he tried to ram the helicopter,” L’Heureux recalled with a sly grin. “He said he would rather go toward the mellow old guys in the helicopter than the deputies. Little did he know we are the old guys that could track him down anywhere.”

More often, L’Heureux’s missions involved someone in peril.

Once he was looking for a boy who became lost overnight after he was separated from his family while camping near Piru Creek.

“As we flew over this canyon, we saw the kid there,” he said. “And about a quarter of a mile away, we could see this 350-pound bear going toward him.”

L’Heureux zoomed down and calmly told the boy to jump in. “We did it as fast as we could--and then told the kid about the bear as we took off.”

Last year, while responding to a call--a 69-Adam in Sheriff’s Department parlance--he could feel something was wrong with his chopper and then discovered that he had lost control of the tail rotor. The helicopter was heavy with fuel, increasing the danger of fire in a crash.

Although his heart beat faster and adrenaline pumped through his body, he balanced the weight of the helicopter and landed the aircraft safely at a remote airstrip in the desert, with fire engines and deputies standing by.

L’Heureux has no desire to give up flying after he retires. He has been tinkering with an airplane kit for the last year and said he intends to build an experimental plane in the garage of his Santa Clarita home.

As the sun began to set at the end of his final training day with the search and rescue team, he wanted to exit the scene gracefully.

So he stepped onto the skid of the chopper he had flown for years, held onto the side of the craft with one hand, and turned and waved goodby to the volunteers below as his replacement pilot, Jahn, lifted off. The volunteers’ muted cheers were drowned out by the whoosh of the helicopter flying away.