Nine aboard two military aircraft are feared dead

Updated: October 30, 2009 - 8:21 PM

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SAN DIEGO - The nighttime collision of a Coast Guard airplane on a rescue mission and a Marine helicopter left nine people feared dead at sea Friday as investigators tried to determine how the crews failed to see each other in a heavily used military training area.

Military aircraft and ships searched the ocean off Southern California for any sign of the victims while investigators gathered recordings of air traffic controllers and pilot communications. The search focused on a debris field 50 miles off the San Diego coast. The crash involved a Coast Guard C-130 with a seven-member crew and a Marine Corps AH-1W Super Cobra with two aboard as it flew in formation near the Navy's San Clemente Island, a site with training ranges for amphibious, air, surface and undersea warfare.

The Sacramento-based C-130 crew was looking for a man aboard a 12-foot motorized skiff who was reported missing after leaving Santa Catalina Island to reach a friend on a disabled yacht.

The Marine helicopter was flying from Camp Pendleton near San Diego to San Clemente Island, said Maj. Jay Delarosa, a spokesman for Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

Two Super Cobras, a type of attack helicopter, were escorting two CH-53E Super Stallion transport helicopters carrying Marines to the island, Delarosa said.

The accident occurred inside a so-called military warning area, which is at times open to civilian aircraft and at times closed for military use, said Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Ian Gregor.

Minutes before the collision, the FAA told the C-130 pilot to begin communicating with military controllers at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego Bay, but it was not known if the pilot did so, Gregor said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS