According to officials, the pilot of a police helicopter urgently fought to stay flying before falling into the ocean off the coast of Orange County last month, killing the tactical flight officer.
On the night of Feb. 19, two Huntington Beach officers were responding to a complaint of a group fighting in Newport Beach when the helicopter crashed in a short stretch of water in Newport Bay between Lido Isle and the Balboa Peninsula. members of the public and lifeguards rushed to retrieve the officers from the aircraft, which had crashed upside down in shallow water, according to witnesses.
Nicholas Vella, 44, a 14-year member of the Huntington Beach Police Department, was killed in the crash.
The helicopter was orbiting about 500 feet above the scene of the initial call, and slowed to keep the FLIR camera aimed on the call when the aircraft suddenly “yawed aggressively to the right,” according to the NTSB initial report.
The pilot attempted to adjust and stop the rotation, but the helicopter began to spin, according to the report.
Vella, radioed to dispatch at the time of the incident, “We’re having some mechanical troubles right now,” and then, “We’re going down, we’re going down,” according to the report.
The pilot told investigators that he wanted to keep the engine running because he was over a populated area, “He had no horizon or proper external reference because it was dark,” the report noted, “but he could see the lights of houses coming and sensed impact was imminent.”
The helicopter’s speed was slowed, and it crashed into the water on the right side, where Vella was sitting.
“As the canopy shattered, the pilot remembered hearing a loud bang and seeing water and glass flying at him.” “He felt the rotor blades contact the water, everything came to a halt, and he was buried in a matter of seconds,” according to the report.
The pilot managed to jump out of the helicopter using a HEED’s air bottle before being rescued.
