PUHI — Aided by current and former Kaua‘i Fire Department rescue specialists, a Maui salvage company was able to retrieve the final victim yesterday in last week’s Bali Hai Helicopter crash. Also yesterday, Kaua‘i officials released the names of four
PUHI — Aided by current and former Kaua‘i Fire Department rescue specialists, a Maui salvage company was able to retrieve the final victim yesterday in last week’s Bali Hai Helicopter crash.
Also yesterday, Kaua‘i officials released the names of four of the victims, whose remains were recovered Monday and Tuesday: 39-year-old Shankar Tummala, the India-born pilot, Willy Braun, 59, and Heike Braun, 38, both of Germany, and Tamara Zytkowski, 30, of Avon, Ohio.
The last body, which an official said was that of Thomas Huemmer, 36, a lawyer from Avon, Ohio, was brought down from the mountain on the second of two trips to retrieve the wreckage. Huemmer was the only victim whose identity authorities did not release, but family and friends acknowledged his death in the crash earlier in the week.
The pilot, Tummala, had flown 126 hours in the Bali Hai Helicopter Tours Bell 206B, all on Kaua‘i, said Nicole Charnon, an air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. His family flew in from the Detroit area Thursday, she said.
Tummala formerly flew with India’s air force and had flown tours on Kaua‘i for two months, according to Coast Guard Lt. Danny Shaw.
According to an aviation website on which Tummala’s resume was posted, he had 17 years, from 1986-2003, of Indian Air Force helicopter-flying experience, operating extensively over a variety of terrain, including mountains, forests, and sea coast, it said.
He was also a flight instructor and trainer, and had wide range of military flying experiences, including search and rescue, medevac, ultra low-level flying, high-altitude flying, as well as special military operations, the resumé said. He received his training at Helicopter Training School, at the Air Force base in Hyderabad, India, and his Federal Aviation Administration commercial pilot rotorcraft license at Lapeer Aviation, in Lapeer, Mich.
Charnon said yesterday that no cause had yet been determined for the crash.
“We’re nowhere near there yet,” she said, adding that the board would determine probable cause after a full investigation.
She said investigators from the FAA and NTSB, as well as investigators from the helicopter manufacturer and the engine company would be helping in evaluating the wreckage.
“They’re just here to help me,” said Charnon. “We’re taking it seriously. We want to make sure tour operations are being conducted as safely as possible.”
She added that since this is the third tour company crash since 1998, they would be conducting interviews with a number of tour companies on Kaua‘i to see if a possible change in FAA regulations might be necessary.
The Sept. 24 crash was the first in Bali Hai Helicopter Tours’ 18-year history, owner James Le said.
“We can’t escape the fact we had” the crashes, said Charnon, a pilot and mechanic. “We need to make sure the tour operations are safe.”
The board makes recommendations based on the findings, said Charnon, but the FAA has the final say.
She said that the investigators already on Kaua‘i, plus other NTSB specialists, would be “looking at the wreckage in more detail” today.
“We have a decent amount of wreckage here,” she said. “We’ve got things to look at.”
The Maui-based company, Pacific Helicopters, using a large Huey helicopter, brought most of the larger parts of the Bali Hai chopper in one trip yesterday morning, including the transmission, engine, one main rotor, the tail, and the instrument board.
A smaller, Hughes 500 helicopter brought personnel back and forth from the crash scene to the staging area, at an abandoned landing strip just mauka of Kaumuali‘i Highway. The two aircraft returned to Maui in the afternoon.
The pieces were loaded directly onto a flatbed truck in Puhi before being transferred to a remote hangar at Lihu‘e Airport yesterday afternoon.
“There’s still part of the fuselage, and pieces that have broken off still up there,” she said. Those parts would be removed by Inter-Island helicopters when the weather is more clear, she said. The Inter-island helicopter, operating as Air 21, was unable to get rescue personnel to the scene last Saturday and Sunday because of poor weather.
Maui-based Pacific also hired current KFD rescue specialist Roy Constantino, who was part of KFD’s rescue team which retrieved the two bodies Monday, and former KFD Battalion Chief Dennis Smith, a retired KFD trainer and long-time rescue specialist. They were assisted by state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement Officer Buddy Wilson, who was the safety officer for the two men on the ground.
Once again, the two men described a treacherous, muddy, and steep slope.
“Everything went well. The weather was good, a couple of good breaks,” said Smith after returning from the site near Kapalaoa Point. “We just pinpointed what they wanted and got it.”
Huemmer’s body was removed on a separate trip and was whisked off by van to a mortuary.
Huemmer’s family members, quoted by several Ohio and Hawai‘i newspapers, said he and Zytkowski were vacationing together in Hawai‘i with her parents, who were not on the helicopter.
The helicopter, on a routine 45-minute tour, was about 26 years old, according to the NTSB.
The helicopter was reported missing after failing to return from a tour on time. A crew on a Coast Guard helicopter spotted the crash site Saturday. The helicopter smashed into the side of the mountain and burned about a mile north of Kapalaoa Point. The wreckage was about 2,700 feet up on a 70-degree slope where thick ferns and trees are stunted by the wind and abundant rain.
Tom Finnegan, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 Ext. 242 or tfinnegan@pulitzer.net.
