Search for Survivors of Helicopter Crash Ends

Coast Guard rescuers abandoned their search Saturday for three people on board a Southern California Edison helicopter that crashed into the ocean off Huntington Beach the day before, saying that the chances of survival were very unlikely.

Coast Guard patrol boats and helicopters, which searched Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., resumed the search with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department before sunrise Saturday and continued until 9:45 a.m., he said.

Rescuers spent five hours combing waters 3 1/3 miles off Huntington Beach Pier before calling off the effort, Coast Guard Petty Officer Kerry Kingery said.

“We’ve saturated the area . . . where possibly there would be any survivors,” he said.

The pilot and two passengers, Kingery said, are unlikely to have survived more than eight hours in the cold waters, which dipped below 60 degrees Friday night. “Usually hypothermia would take them,” he said.

Officials are continuing to investigate the cause of the crash.

The three Edison employees, two men and a woman, took off from an Edison facility in Irvine at 6:35 a.m. Friday on a flight to Santa Catalina Island for a business meeting. Eight minutes later, air-traffic control at Hawthorne Airport lost contact with the pilot. There were never any reports of trouble.

Coast Guard officials referred questions about the identities of those on board to Edison. Company officials said they would not release the names, citing the wishes of the victims’ families.

Both passengers were mid-level management employees, company spokesman Clarence Brown said. Edison helicopters continued the hunt through Saturday afternoon for any possible survivors, he added.

“We’re always going to be optimistic to the end,” Brown said, “and the families are holding out hope.”

During Saturday’s search of the area, divers and rescuers found the pilot’s helmet, some maps, shoes, and a seat cushion saturated with fuel. Rescuers also found a small section from the helicopter’s tail and a life raft and life vest, both unused.

Rescuers and company officials said they still did not know the cause of the crash. The flight from Irvine to Catalina, Brown said, is a routine trip that normally takes 25 minutes. The pilot, he said, was “very highly trained.”

One explanation, however, might hinge on Friday morning’s weather conditions, which were poor for helicopter pilots. Like many helicopters, Edison’s did not have the navigational equipment to fly in clouds, Brown said.

Offshore, heavy fog and clouds looming at about 300 feet posed difficult conditions for pilots, Kingery said. Many helicopter pilots do not like flying in such conditions, he said, though flight is not impossible.

The Edison pilot might have been unaware of how poor conditions were offshore when he took off, company officials said. Before leaving Irvine, the pilot reported that visibility over land was good, but he could not be sure of the conditions in the channel until he was out over water, Brown said.

The aircraft, built by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm in 1991 and purchased by the utility company in 1998, is the newest in the company’s six-chopper fleet, Brown said. The chopper had not had any mechanical breakdowns since it was purchased, Edison officials said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash. Edison issued a press release saying it had hired an aircraft recovery service to find missing parts of the helicopter.

On Friday, rescuers hunted for survivors for 12 hours until calling off the search at nightfall. At one point, an aircraft sighted a man’s body floating face down near helicopter wreckage. But the body sank in deep water before it could be retrieved.