A medical helicopter ferrying a patient crashed into the water off Catalina Island near Los Angeles, killing two people and leaving another missing as rescuers scrambled Wednesday evening.
The aircraft went down shortly after takeoff and struck the water a short distance from the island, Just the News reported, citing authorities. Two people were killed. Two others were hospitalized. Rescuers searched for a fifth person who had been aboard.
Coast Guard Capt. Stacey Crecy told a news conference that the Coast Guard, area firefighters, and divers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department joined the rescue effort. The cause was not immediately clear.
Additional reporting identified the aircraft as a REACH Air Medical Services EC135 P2+ helicopter. The New York Post reported that the flight departed Oceanside around 6:41 p.m., landed on Catalina around 7:04 p.m., and crashed after takeoff from the Pebbly Beach helipad.
According to that account, two people died, two were injured, and the missing person was the patient being transported. The National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation. Search conditions were described as calm, yet wreckage and fuel in the water complicated the work.
Dispatch audio captured the urgency on scene. A witness reported survivors in the water right after the crash.
US Coast Guard Cmdr. Mark Leahey described the conditions this way:
"Conditions right now are actually calm on scene, so I would call them ideal search conditions. But there is a lot of debris from the crash."
Crecy’s briefing put the sequence in plain terms: the helicopter went down soon after leaving the ground and hit the water close to Catalina Island. Emergency crews moved fast. Divers entered the water. Firefighters and Coast Guard units stayed on the response.
Names of the dead, the injured, and the missing patient were not released in the initial reports. The operator’s full flight plan, the reason for the island stop, and any mechanical or weather factor also remained unstated while investigators began their work.
Medical helicopters exist to move critical patients when ground transport is too slow. When one of those flights ends in the water, families, crews, and the public are left waiting on hard facts, who was lost, what failed, and whether the next flight faces the same risk.
First responders did their jobs under debris and fuel. The public still needs a clear account of why a patient transport ended in a crash off Catalina Island.
