Overview
- The Airborne Aviation helicopter, which went down Thursday afternoon near Kauai’s Na Pali Coast, carried one pilot and four passengers.
- Kauai police received a text-to-911 at about 3:45 p.m., and rescuers found the helicopter on a sandbar roughly 100 yards off Kalalau Beach, with two survivors taken to Wilcox Medical Center.
- Good Samaritans and Kauai Fire Department crews used an Air 1 helicopter and jet skis to pull people from the water in a difficult-to-access area.
- The U.S. Coast Guard, Kauai Police, the county’s emergency management agency, American Medical Response, and Hawaii’s land department coordinated the response.
- Federal investigators opened a probe into the crash, plan to inspect the recovered aircraft, and have not identified a cause, as tour flights in the remote Na Pali cliffs remain popular for views but challenging for aviation.