Two medical helicopters involved in separate Catalina Island ocean incidents

Two helicopter events off Catalina Island on the evening of Sept. 30 are under investigation. The FAA says a medical helicopter appears to have touched the ocean shortly after taking off from the island, about a minute before a second helicopter went down in the same area, killing three people.

The first aircraft was a Mercy Air helicopter flown by Air Methods. It left the Pebbly Beach helipad near Avalon at about 7:45 p.m. headed for Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. An internal Air Methods report cited in news accounts says the pilot saw the helicopter drop from about 150 feet to 75 feet soon after departure, with poor visibility through night-vision goggles over smooth water on a moonless night, and made control inputs to correct. The pilot later wrote of feeling an impact and spray beneath the aircraft and concluded it had touched the water. The helicopter flew on to the mainland and was grounded after landing. The FAA confirmed its own investigation.

The second helicopter, a Eurocopter EC135 P2 operated by REACH Air Medical Services, left the same helipad and crashed into the ocean moments later. Three of the five people aboard died: pilot Steven Robinson, flight nurse Jessica deVries and patient Catalina Hernandez Romero. REACH named the victims in a statement on Oct. 2. Two others survived.

The NTSB is investigating the fatal REACH crash; the FAA is handling the earlier Mercy Air event. Neither agency has determined what caused either occurrence, and investigators have not said whether the two are connected.