San Diego Union-Tribune January 03, 2007
9 injured in crash of Guard helicopter
Troops, agents on border mission
By Steve Liewer
A California National Guard helicopter crashed near Otay Mountain yesterday afternoon, injuring nine National Guardsmen and U.S. Border Patrol agents.
The UH-1 Huey transport had taken off from North Island Naval Air Station and was on a routine flight carrying a team of Border Patrol agents when it went down east of Lower Otay Reservoir at 3:50 p.m., said Maj. Ken Witt, a National Guard spokesman. The helicopter landed on its belly with its main rotor broken and its tail snapped off to one side near Otay Lakes Road and the Minnewanna Truck Trail.
Helicopters from the Sheriff's Department, Mercy Air, San Diego police and Border Patrol ferried the injured to hospitals. Sheriff's Lt. Dave Myers described the injuries as “moderate to major,” though Witt said none were life-threatening. At least two of the injured walked away from the crash site, National Guard Master Sgt. Michael Drake said, and four were released from the hospital last night.
Four victims were National Guard crew members and five were Border Patrol agents, Witt said. The flight was part of Operation Jumpstart, President Bush's May 2006 initiative to use 6,000 National Guard troops to bolster security and reduce the flow of illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The helicopter left North Island at 3 p.m. and landed at Brown Field 15 minutes later to pick up a team of five Border Patrol agents for a mission near Otay Mountain, Drake said. The team was part of Joint Task Force Vista.
Hueys first flew in 1959 and were the mainstay of the U.S. Army transport fleet during the Vietnam War. About 9,000 were built, the last in 1976, according to GlobalSecurity.org. In September 2004, fewer than 150 were still flying, an Army News release said.
The names, ranks and units of the injured were not released.
Authorities wouldn't speculate on the cause of the crash, but a military investigative team was traveling to the site.
Capt. Brennan Blue of the California Department of Forestry, which provided medical response, said power lines were down near the crash site, “but it's undetermined whether they went down before the crash or after.”
Otay Mountain has been the site of numerous aircraft crashes over the years.
In April 2005, a pilot in his 70s was critically injured when a home-built, single-engine plane crashed there.
In October 2004, five people died when their Learjet 35A medical air ambulance flew into the southwest face of the mountain. Mistakes made by the flight crew and an air traffic controller caused the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded.
Nearly 16 years ago, seven members of country singer Reba McEntire's band were among 10 people killed when their twin-engine Hawker Siddeley aircraft crashed in the area.
Staff writers David E. Graham and Pauline Repard, Union-Tribune researcher Erin Hobbs, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2007, Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
