HA'ENA, Kaua'i — The smell of fuel drifted across the beach at the mouth of Limahuli Stream yesterday, just downwind from where a Heli USA tour helicopter crashed into the sea during a sudden thunderstorm Friday afternoon, killing three passengers.

A National Transportation Safety Board investigator arrived on Kaua'i yesterday from Seattle to determine the accident's cause.

The pilot and two passengers in Friday's crash were able to swim to shore. The victims will not be identified until their families are reached. County public information officer Mary Daubert said autopsies will be performed tomorrow.

The helicopter was identified by the Federal Aviation Administration by its tail registration number N355NT. National Transportation Safety Board records show that the same helicopter, while under lease to Heli USA, was previously wrecked in December 2000 during an instructional flight. In that accident, the helicopter's skid hit a rock and suffered a hard landing that caused "substantial buckling of the tail assembly."

That accident occurred near Henderson, Nev., during a pilot check ride, with an FAA inspector aboard. Heli USA has tour operations on Kaua'i, O'ahu, Las Vegas and at the Grand Canyon.

There was no indication that the damage suffered in 2000 played any role in Friday's crash.

The helicopter's wreckage remained yesterday in murky water about 200 yards from shore in Ha'ena. Kaua'i Fire Department divers who removed a body from the sunken fuselage Friday afternoon were forced to swim through a fuel slick.

Helicopter debris washed onto the beach yesterday, and state Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said that anyone finding such material could bring it to investigators on the beach, or to the Princeville or Lihu'e airports. Security officials at Lihu'e Airport will provide assistance, he said.

Kaua'i police said they are working with federal investigators to arrange the recovery of the helicopter, and are trying to determine whether low weight limits on the Kaua'i north shore's bridges will prevent using a large truck to haul the wreckage to Lihu'e Airport, where it is to be studied.

"We're still assessing the situation. ... Transporting the wreckage is not as simple as it may seem because it's questionable as to whether or not a lowboy can go over the bridges," said Lt. Roy Asher.

Heli USA vice president John Power issued a brief statement that confirmed its aircraft had been in the wreck, and that it was working with local authorities to notify victims' families. The firm did not respond to questions.

FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the stricken chopper had taken off on a sightseeing flight out of Lihu'e Airport about 40 minutes before the crash, which he said occurred about 2:35 p.m. There were five passengers and the pilot onboard.

The Coast Guard reported the pilot issued a radio mayday before the crash, saying he was experiencing wind shear. The time and location of the helicopter wreck placed the craft directly offshore as a powerful local thunderstorm hit the cliffs and valleys of north Kaua'i.

Residents of Kaua'i's north shore reported that the freak storm appeared without notice about 2:30 p.m. Friday.

"It was intense," said Wainiha resident Denise Ham Young. "It came out of nowhere. Rain, thunder, lightning, wind. And then in a half-hour it was gone."1

A flash flood that accompanied the storm raged down Manoa Stream — a few hundred yards from the crash site — within 20 minutes, beachgoers said, blocking the road and dumping sediment into the nearshore waters.

Wind shear, a sudden change in wind direction or speed, is identified by the FAA as a major cause of aircraft accidents.

Wind shear can be associated with microbursts — intense but small-scale downdrafts — and both are often associated with thunderstorms.

At the Kane'ohe Marine base yesterday, the crew of a Navy Seahawk helicopter described their role in the rescue of two passengers from the tour helicopter.

The crew had been flying since early Friday and was headed home from training at Barking Sands at about 2:40 p.m. when a distress call came through.

Lt. Cmdr. Alan Aber turned the SH-60 toward the coordinates of the crash.

Aber and his crew — co-pilot Lt. j.g. Tom Burke, aviation warfare systems operators Chief Petty Officer Jim Rogers and Petty Officer 3rd Class Randy Watts — fly anti-ship and anti-submarine missions. At least annually, they update their training for their secondary mission: search and rescue.

The weather was bad.

"A squall line was passing through," Aber said. "It was raining, and visibility was low."

Communications were difficult, so a second Seahawk remained in the area to relay communications.

The wreckage was hard to spot, but with the coordinates provided by the tour company, Aber and Burke located the most visible marker: another tour helicopter — from the same company as the downed aircraft — that was circling the wreckage, burning off what little fuel it had left while waiting for help to arrive.

When the Seahawk came into view, the tour helicopter headed for shore.

The area it had circled was a couple of hundred yards offshore, marked by a few pieces of floating debris. Three people were swimming to shore, assisted by surfers who used their boards to support them. They were going to be OK. Two other people, a man and a woman, were floating unconscious in the water and needed help.

Aber and Burke situated the helicopter over each unconscious victim in turn: the woman in the open sea first, the man in knee-deep water on the reef next. Chief Rogers hoisted Watts into the water.

"It is difficult to judge altitude, looking straight down," Rogers said. "So I lowered him based on his hand signals, which is what we are taught to do."

The rescue of the man on the shallow reef was particularly challenging, Watts said.

"It was a real adrenaline pump," the young sailor said. "It was something else."

It was his first rescue.

The crew performed CPR on the man and woman as Aber flew them to meet an ambulance at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands. Once on land, the paramedics took over the resuscitation efforts as the victims were rushed to Kaua'i Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waimea. But the work of the sailors and civilians did not pay off.

Neither patient regained consciousness. Both were declared dead late Friday.

A Kaua'i firefighter and lifeguard later pulled the body of the sixth passenger out of the sunken wreckage.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com and Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.