By JOSE BORJON/The Brownsville Herald
BROWNSVILLE – Bad weather may have played a part in Tuesday’s deadly helicopter crash over the Laguna Madre, Coast Guard and National Weather Service officials said.
Federal investigators hope to discover today more about what caused a Valley AirCare helicopter to plunge into the Laguna Madre Tuesday night, killing three.
Further clues may come after federal investigators lift the helicopter wreckage from the bay this morning.
On Wednesday, officials learned some details about the fatal flight involving a pilot and two paramedics en route from Harlingen to the South Padre Island Convention Centre to pick up a patient.
The trip to the Island had been aborted shortly before the helicopter crashed, Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said.
They could not land (because of weather conditions),” he said. They were going back to their base.”
With the arrival of a cold front Tuesday, winds strengthened to gusts between 20 and 30 mph at the time of the crash, said Jeff Philo, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville.
They (likely) were right on the shear line between north and south winds at that time,” he said. If (the crash) were a weather-related problem, it would have been from that.”
Shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, the helicopter crashed into the Laguna Madre 2 1/2 miles west of the convention center, Lucio said. A Coast Guard Corpus Christi HU-25C rescue aircraft found the downed helicopter’s fuselage at approximately 11 p.m. Tuesday.
The bodies of paramedics Michael T. Sanchez, 39, and Raul Garcia, 38, were pulled from the water minutes later.
At 11 a.m. Wednesday, pilot Robert Goss’ body was recovered about 150 yards north of the wreckage, Lucio said.
All three men were pronounced dead by Justice of the Peace Benny Ochoa III, who ordered autopsies.
At the time of the crash, visibility was 7 miles, which is normal, and there was no rain, Philo said.
However, meteorologist Jeoffrey Bogorad issued a Marine Weather Statement Tuesday afternoon, warning a “sea fog” near the Laguna Madre could be possible with the arrival of the cold front.
The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory of sustained winds as great as 30 mph at 5:27 a.m. Tuesday. That advisory expired at 6 p.m. that day, hours before the flight.
The remaining pieces of the puzzle will be scrutinized by federal investigators. Wednesday, the National Transportation Safety Board took over the investigation at 6 p.m., Lucio said.
“We have notified the NTSB along with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration),” he said. “They have indicated to us they will take on the investigation to determine what happened.”
Goss last communicated with dispatchers at 8:52 p.m., U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Ben Sparacin said.
“At 8:58 p.m. they lost communication,” he said. “At 9 p.m., they figured something was wrong and contacted authorities.”
Coast Guard officials were not notified of the downed helicopter until 9:50 p.m., Sparacin said.
Shortly after that, the Brownsville and Weslaco fire departments’ dive teams responded to the call for help and began search efforts.
Scores of divers swept through the Laguna Madre late Tuesday into early Wednesday, calling off search efforts at about 2 a.m. The search for the pilot restarted at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Brownsville Fire Chief Lenny Perez said.
Jason Moody, spokesman for the town of South Padre Island, did not know what happened to the patient who was waiting to be transferred from the South Padre Island Convention Centre.
Staff with South Texas Emergency Care Foundation, which operates Valley AirCare and its ambulance fleet, did not immediately return calls for comment Wednesday.
According to its Web site, stec-ems.org, Valley AirCare has been in operation in the Rio Grande Valley since Feb. 1, 1995.
Valley AirCare “has transported more than 4,900 citizens of South Texas and Northern Mexico since its inception,” the Web site states.
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