HONOLULU -- The Coast Guard's only woman helicopter pilot was among the three crew members killed when their chopper crashed during a heavy storm on Molokai, officials said Friday.
Lt. Colleen Cain, 29, of Burlington, Iowa, who completed flight training in 1979 was one of the three people killed in the crash during a heavy storm Thursday. Last year she was awarded the Coast Guard's Achievement Medal for resusicitating a 3-year-old boy pulled from the water after a boating accident.
It was not known whether Lt. Cain, who was flying as co-pilot, or the pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Horton 'Buzz' Johnson, of Orange, Calif., was at the controls when their craft slammed into Molokai Ridge in near-zero visibility. The two took turns at the wheel, officials said.
The third crew member killed was Aviation Machinist Mate 2nd. Class David L. Thompson, 23, of Sequim, Wash., who was thrown from the chopper on impact.
On Friday the wreck was still dangling precariously on a steep slope at 2,200 feet, and the Coast Guard was uncertain as to how to extricate the bodies of the other two crew members.
Their amphibious HH-52 helicopter had set out in search of a fishing vessel believed sinking with seven persons aboard. The vessel and its crew were later located and towed to safety.
Johnson, 33, was a veteran of search-and-rescue missions who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, seldom given in peacetime, for a 1976 rescue of a man who had crashed a light plane on a mountainside in weather similar to that Thursday.
Lt. Cain, a 1974 graduate of the University of Santa Clara, later finished the Coast Guard's officer training school at Yorktown, Pa. After flight training, she and another woman, who since left the service, became the Coast Guard's first female helicopter pilots. The service has one other woman pilot who flies fixed-wing aircraft.
