EDMONDS – Federal investigators could call on commercial divers after an unsuccessful weekend of searching for the remains of a medical team killed when their helicopter plummeted into Puget Sound.
The search continued in part Sunday, with three Coast Guard auxiliary boats maintaining a safety zone around the site of the crash in Browns Bay north of here, said Petty Officer Kurt Fredrickson, with the Coast Guard’s 13th district in Seattle.
Crews aboard the boats also watched for any possible debris that may float up from the seafloor, Fredrickson said.
Earlier Sunday, the Coast Guard cutter Swordfish, the third such vessel to help in the search, was released from duty after a few hours.
Now the Coast Guard will await further instruction from the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the cause of the crash.
Search crews using side-scanning sonar equipment on Saturday detected several images in the water, but when divers inspected further they found them to be only rocks, Fredrickson said.
“Since then they’ve determined that the sonar they were using was not effective to get in the deeper areas,” he said.
The bay is between 50 and 600 feet deep, but the sonar equipment being used can scan best to a depth of 300 feet, said Edmonds Police Sgt. Jeff Jones.
“If (the helicopter) is beyond 300 feet, then we’re going to have to have specialized scanning equipment,” Jones said.
He added that NTSB might hire a commercial dive team to recover wreckage from that depth.
“Certainly everybody would like it if we can locate the remains of the crew,” Jones said.
NTSB officials on Sunday did not immediately return a call for comment. But on Saturday an investigator said the agency would pursue other means to search the area.
“If they can’t do enough today, by the middle of next week we’ll be using a remote operating vehicle from Seattle” to get a better view of the seabed, said Jim Struhsaker, a senior air investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board in SeaTac.
Meanwhile, employees of Airlift Northwest, operator of the helicopter, plan a memorial service at 11 a.m. Thursday at Boeing Field in Seattle for pilot Steve Smith, 59, of Whidbey Island, and nurses Erin Reed, 48, and Lois Suzuki, 47, both of Seattle.
No patient was aboard at the time of the crash.
All three are presumed dead after their medical transport helicopter plunged into the Sound last Thursday night while en route back to its Arlington base.
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