Search Ends for 2 Missing After Crash of Copters

The U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday called off its search for two San Diego men who have been missing since two U.S. Marine Corps helicopters apparently collided in midair Monday over the ocean off Dana Point.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Brenda Toledo said the search for the two men was indefinitely suspended about 7:45 p.m. after 27 hours of scanning more than 100 square miles of ocean by aircraft and boats.

Four Marines were rescued after the accident Monday.

Although the Marine Corps declined to comment Tuesday on what caused the crash, it was disclosed that one of the two missing men is a civilian, Joe Towers, a free-lance photographer and Navy Reserve captain who was riding in one of the helicopters and taking pictures.

The other missing man was identified as Marine Capt. Brent MacBain, 31, a pilot of the Huey helicopter in which Towers was riding. MacBain is from Los Alamos, N.M., but was living in San Diego, a Marine spokesman said.

Marine spokeswoman Capt. Betsy Sweatt described the crash as an apparent midair collision but could not state whether the helicopters collided or came too close and clipped rotors.

“I don’t know what actually took place,” Sweatt said. “This is an investigation that could take 30 days and will involve pulling up two helicopters from the bottom of the ocean.”

Sweatt said the two helicopters belonging to Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 were flying together about 200 feet above the ocean and were in radio contact.

Of the four survivors, Marine Master Sgt. Don Long said: “The first thing they knew, they were in the water. Hopefully, our investigation will determine what happened.”

The helicopters dropped “like a rock” into the ocean and sank 50 to 100 feet before the survivors could free themselves and surface, said Dr. Thomas Shaver, emergency surgeon at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center. One survivor told Shaver that he saw the other helicopter going down as he reached the surface.

“It’s an incredible event these men survived,” Shaver said, describing their condition when they got to the hospital Monday night as “in the usual Marine state of being: in a lot of pain and not saying much.”

Two of the men, 1st Lt. Steven Picot, 29, from Westchester, N.Y., and now living in Carlsbad, and 1st Lt. Scott Hanford, 25, from Tonawanda, N.Y., now living in Oceanside, suffered only cuts and bruises and were sent home Tuesday.

Picot was the pilot of the AH-1W Super Cobra, and Hanford was his co-pilot.

The other survivors were identified as Sgt. Vincent Hinojosa, 23, of Oceanside, a crew chief on the UH-1N Huey helicopter who was the most seriously injured--and who remains hospitalized with small compression fractures of his back--and Capt. James McAllister, 31, of Oceanside, the Huey co-pilot.

All four men were plucked from the ocean by a commercial swordfishing vessel, the 56-foot San Diego-based De Brum. Skipper Steve Brown said he and a crewman were about 15 miles southeast of Catalina Island when they saw two smoke flares.

Brown, 32, of San Diego said they headed toward the flares and began to see debris and an oil slick on the ocean.

Brown said he found two helmets and a camera bag with about “four or five rolls of film inside.” A Marine spokesman confirmed that the film had been found and that it would be reviewed as part of the crash investigation.

Towers was granted permission to ride along on the Huey helicopter to take pictures of the Super Cobra in flight. Camp Pendleton spokesman Mike Hedlund said Towers had published photographs for numerous aviation and military magazines.