The remains of six people traveling to Hawaii were found Friday after a tour helicopter crashed during a flight off a Hawaiian island, officials said. A seventh person on board was presumed dead.
The aircraft, which reportedly had two children on board, never returned from its Thursday flight off Kauai. The wreckage was found around 9:30 a.m. in Koke‘e State Park, officials said.
“There are no indications of survivors,” Kauai Fire Department Battalion Chief Sol Kanoho told reporters.
A family of two and a family of four were on the flight, Kanoho said. He did not release other details about the passengers and said authorities were in the process of notifying next of kin. The bodies were transported to a hospital, Kauai Police Chief Todd Raybuck said.
The helicopter was found along its regular tour route on a steep plot of land, Kanoho said. Investigators had paused their search on Friday due to fog and limited visibility. Kanoho said they planned to resume in the morning if weather permitted.
The tour company alerted the U.S. Coast Guard after the helicopter failed to make its return time at 5:21 p.m. from sightseeing off the Napali Coast of Kauai, Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Cox said in a statement. A Coast Guard cutter and helicopter were dispatched to search for the missing aircraft — with one pilot and six passengers on board — aided by a Navy helicopter squadron, Cox said.
Kauai police identified the tour group as Safari Helicopters. A person who answered the phone there on Friday and identified herself only as “Stephanie” declined to comment and hung up.
Three investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board were en route to Kauai on Friday, the agency said. The Federal Aviation Administration had issued a temporary flight restriction near the search area, but tour companies were still allowed to fly their routes outside of that space.
Kauai, an island northwest of Oahu, is ringed by towering mountains and jagged cliffs that served as a backdrop for the “Jurassic Park” film series, including the Manawaiopuna waterfall in the first film that has become a prime tour destination.
The island of 70,000 residents is 80 percent uninhabited, and most terrain is either a park or preserve, knotted with cliffs, gorges and forests. There are few inland roads. Waimea Canyon, in a reserve near the coast, is so vast that it has been dubbed the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific.”
[A plane rerouted mid-flight after a child suffered a medical emergency. She couldn’t be saved.]
Lawmakers have eyed tighter control of aerial tours in Hawaii following a string of deadly incidents. Three people were killed when a tour helicopter plummeted onto an Oahu highway in April, and a commercial skydiving plane crashed in June, killing 11 people.
In August, Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) announced he was introducing a bill that would “impose strict regulations on commercial tour operations,” including helicopters. Among other things, Case’s proposed bill would prohibit helicopter pilots from serving as tour narrators while flying.
“These tragedies occurred amidst a rapid increase in commercial helicopter and small plane overflights of all parts of Hawaii . . . [and] increased risk to not only passengers but those on the ground,” Case said in a statement.
But those tours are a steady boon to the economy, advocates said. The Hawaii Helicopter Association estimates that air-tour operators contribute nearly $150 million to the state’s economy each year.
“Safe operations, and regulations to ensure that operations are safe, must take into account the geography, weather including cloud cover, specific equipment and air traffic control,” the association said in September.
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