Search Continues for Missing Edison Employees

A search for three missing Southern California Edison employees whose helicopter crashed into the ocean Friday morning off Huntington Beach continued on Memorial Day.

The search, funded by Edison and conducted by a private company, began Sunday morning after Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations were called off Saturday night. Officials had determined that finding survivors was unlikely after nearly two days. The search will continue today.

Clarence Brown, a spokesman for the utility company, said the plan is to continue the search indefinitely.

Edison had owned the helicopter for about a year, Brown said. It was one of six that the company uses within its service area.

Aircraft Recovery Service, the search firm, is using sonar equipment to look for the remains of the helicopter, Brown said.

Brown said the search has yielded only small pieces of wreckage.

“We’re going out a little farther west, scanning via sonar one square mile at a time,” he said. “It is a really tedious process.”

The search began about 8 a.m. Friday, an hour after the helicopter failed to make its scheduled landing on Santa Catalina Island. The helicopter pilot, an Edison employee, took off about 6:35 a.m. on Friday from an Edison facility in Irvine with two mid-level managers, a man and a woman, on board.

The passengers were on their way to a meeting when the helicopter crashed a little more than three miles off the coast of Huntington Beach. Air-traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot eight minutes after takeoff. There were no reports of trouble on board.

Edison has not released the names of the missing employees at the request of their families.