HONOLULU (AP) — A tour company helicopter crashed off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, police said, killing one person and leaving two missing in the latest in a series of crashes to plague the industry in recent years.
A hiker on the Kalalau trail reported seeing the helicopter crash into the water about a quarter of a mile (0.4 kilometers) off the Na Pali Coast on Thursday and called the fire department around 1:40 p.m., Kauai officials said in a statement.
The Robinson R44 helicopter was part of Ali’i Kauai Air Tours & Charters, authorities said.
The company bills itself as the only Hawaiian-family-owned and -operated air tour company on Kauai, and its website said it has more than three decades of flying experience. It offers private tours by plane or helicopter.
Kauai lifeguards on personal watercraft recovered one person's body from the water Thursday. The U.S. Coast Guard continued searching Friday for the two people in the water.
Their identities were not immediately released.
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. Once the aircraft is recovered, an NTSB investigator will begin documenting the scene and examining the aircraft, the agency said Friday. The aircraft will then be recovered to a secure facility for further evaluation.
The Federal Aviation Administration last year established a new process for air tour operators in Hawaii to be approved to fly at lower altitudes following other fatal crashes.
Tour operators can fly at 1,500 feet (460 meters) unless they have authorization to go lower. The FAA said it would review each operator’s safety plan before issuing permission.
The move came after three deadly crashes in 2019, including one that killed a pilot and six passengers on the Na Pali Coast. The NTSB blamed the crash on the pilot’s decision to continue flying in bad weather.
Three people died when a tour helicopter crashed in a Honolulu suburb, and 11 people were killed when their skydiving plane went down after takeoff on Oahu’s North Shore. Federal investigators blamed that crash on the pilot’s aggressive takeoff.
Another helicopter crashed into a remote Big Island lava field during a sunset tour in June 2022, injuring the six people on board.
Ladd Sanger, a Texas-based aviation attorney and helicopter pilot, has handled air tour crash litigation in Hawaii and has flown a helicopter over Kauai.
The latest crash shows it's not prudent to be flying single-engine helicopters over Hawaii, including off Kauai's rugged coastline, he said.
“If there is an engine problem on Kauai, it is very likely going to be a terrible outcome,” he said. “It is a really rough island and there are so few places to land a helicopter.”
A Robinson R44 is also more susceptible to Hawaii's often-changing climates, he said.
“Kauai is gorgeous, and there is no way to see the beauty of Kauai, but from a helicopter,” he said. “But it needs to be the right helicopter.”
There aren't many Hawaii tour companies operating twin-engine turbine helicopters because they're more expensive, Sanger said.
“Our hearts go out to the families and friends of those affected,” David Smith, president and CEO of Robinson Helicopter Company, said in a statement. “Safety is our highest priority, and we are cooperating fully with all investigating authorities to understand the circumstances surrounding this event.”
Robinson helicopters, including the R44 model, “have a proven track record of safe operation across diverse and challenging environments, from the mountainous terrain of Switzerland to the tropical climate of Hawaii,” the company said. “Robinson helicopters have been operating safely in Hawaii since the 1980s, with some operators flying up to 16,000 flight hours a year without incident.”
While the federal government generally controls air safety measures, Hawaii lawmakers have tried to indirectly make helicopter tours safer, said state Rep. Nadine Nakamura, whose Kauai district includes the Na Pali Coast.
But a bill last session attempting to increase aircraft liability insurance didn't make it to the governor's desk, she said.
She noted that past crashes have been due to a variety of issues including weather and mechanical problems.
“And that's what visitors have to weigh — that there have been crashes in the past,” she said. “People have to balance their desire to see remote and exotic places from a vantage point that is quite stunning to the risks involved.”
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Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.
An ambulance enters Lihue Airport on the island of Kauai, Hawaii on Friday, July 12, 2024. A helicopter crashed into the ocean off the Hawaiian island of Kauai on Thursday leaving one person dead and two others missing, the Kauai Police Department said. (Chris Jensen via AP)
In this photo provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, coast guardsmen participate in a search after a helicopter crash near Na Pali Coast, Kauai, Hawaii. The tour company aircraft went down off the Hawaiian island of Kauai, police said, in the latest in a series of crashes to plague the industry in recent years. (Ty Robertson/USCG via AP)
What's in a name change, after all?
The water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba will be critical to shipping lanes and vacationers whether it’s called the Gulf of Mexico, as it has been for four centuries, or the Gulf of America, as President Donald Trump ordered this week. North America’s highest mountain peak will still loom above Alaska whether it’s called Mt. Denali, as ordered by former President Barack Obama in 2015, or changed back to Mt. McKinley as Trump also decreed.
But Trump's territorial assertions, in line with his “America First” worldview, sparked a round of rethinking by mapmakers and teachers, snark on social media and sarcasm by at least one other world leader. And though Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the Trumpian “Gulf of America” on an official document and some other gulf-adjacent states were considering doing the same, it was not clear how many others would follow Trump's lead.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum joked that if Trump went ahead with the renaming, her country would rename North America “Mexican America.” On Tuesday, she toned it down: “For us and for the entire world it will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico.”
Map lines are inherently political. After all, they're representations of the places that are important to human beings — and those priorities can be delicate and contentious, even more so in a globalized world.
There’s no agreed-upon scheme to name boundaries and features across the Earth.
“Denali” is the mountain's preferred name for Alaska Natives, while “McKinley" is a tribute to President William McKinley, designated in the late 19th century by a gold prospector. China sees Taiwan as its own territory, and the countries surrounding what the United States calls the South China Sea have multiple names for the same body of water.
The Persian Gulf has been widely known by that name since the 16th century, although usage of “Gulf” and “Arabian Gulf” is dominant in many countries in the Middle East. The government of Iran — formerly Persia — threatened to sue Google in 2012 over the company’s decision not to label the body of water at all on its maps. Many Arab countries don’t recognize Israel and instead call it Palestine. And in many official releases, Israel calls the occupied West Bank by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Trump's executive order — titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” — concludes thusly: “It is in the national interest to promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes. The naming of our national treasures, including breathtaking natural wonders and historic works of art, should honor the contributions of visionary and patriotic Americans in our Nation’s rich past.”
But what to call the gulf with the 3,700-mile coastline?
“It is, I suppose, an internationally recognized sea, but (to be honest), a situation like this has never come up before so I need to confirm the appropriate convention,” said Peter Bellerby, who said he was talking over the issue with the cartographers at his London company, Bellerby & Co. Globemakers. “If, for instance, he wanted to change the Atlantic Ocean to the American Ocean, we would probably just ignore it."
As of Wednesday night, map applications for Google and Apple still called the mountain and the gulf by their old names. Spokespersons for those platforms did not immediately respond to emailed questions.
A spokesperson for National Geographic, one of the most prominent map makers in the U.S., said this week that the company does not comment on individual cases and referred questions to a statement on its web site, which reads in part that it "strives to be apolitical, to consult multiple authoritative sources, and to make independent decisions based on extensive research.” National Geographic also has a policy of including explanatory notes for place names in dispute, citing as an example a body of water between Japan and the Korean peninsula, referred to as the Sea of Japan by the Japanese and the East Sea by Koreans.
In discussion on social media, one thread noted that the Sears Tower in Chicago was renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though it's still commonly known by its original moniker. Pennsylvania's capital, Harrisburg, renamed its Market Street to Martin Luther King Boulevard and then switched back to Market Street several years later — with loud complaints both times. In 2017, New York's Tappan Zee Bridge was renamed for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo to great controversy. The new name appears on maps, but “no one calls it that,” noted another user.
“Are we going to start teaching this as the name of the body of water?” asked one Reddit poster on Tuesday.
“I guess you can tell students that SOME PEOPLE want to rename this body of water the Gulf of America, but everyone else in the world calls it the Gulf of Mexico,” came one answer. “Cover all your bases — they know the reality-based name, but also the wannabe name as well.”
Wrote another user: “I'll call it the Gulf of America when I'm forced to call the Tappan Zee the Mario Cuomo Bridge, which is to say never.”
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - Peter Bellerby, the founder of Bellerby & Co. Globemakers, holds a globe at a studio in London, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
FILE - A boat is seen on the Susitna River near Talkeetna, Alaska, on Sunday, June 13, 2021, with Denali in the background. Denali, the tallest mountain on the North American continent, is located about 60 miles northwest of Talkeetna. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)
FILE - The water in the Gulf of Mexico appears bluer than usual off of East Beach, Saturday, June 24, 2023, in Galveston, Texas. (Jill Karnicki/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)