4 killed, 1 missing in Coast Guard copter crash off Kagawa Pref.+

OSAKA, Aug. 18 Kyodo -
A Japan Coast Guard helicopter crashed into the Inland Sea off Sanagi Island in
Kagawa Prefecture on Wednesday after apparently hitting power lines, killing
four of the five personnel on board while the fifth person remains missing,
police and Coast Guard officials said.
The aircraft, a Bell 412EP based at an air base of the 6th Regional Coast Guard
Headquarters in Hiroshima Prefecture, was on a patrol mission when it crashed.
It was not immediately clear why the helicopter may have hit the utility lines,
but eye witnesses said the chopper was flying low.
The identities of the four, whose bodies were retrieved from the sea by Coast
Guard divers, were confirmed as pilot Masahito Fujimoto, 41, co-pilot Hitoshi
Takahashi, 38, flight engineer Yasunobu Okamoto, 39, and communications officer
Mitsuo Matsui, 55. Crew member Satoshi Odake, 56, remains missing.
The Japan Transport Safety Board, an investigative arm of the transport
ministry, dispatched three investigators to the crash site.
The helicopter left the base at Hiroshima airport at around 1:45 p.m. and was
slated to return around 4 p.m. But at around 3:10 p.m., it hit high-voltage
power lines that connect Sanagi and the smaller island nearby, Kagawa
prefectural police said.
The roughly 1.2-kilometer lines were located about 100 meters above water at
the highest point and about 50 meters at the lowest point. All three lines were
severed, and the helicopter appeared badly damaged when it was spotted on the
water shortly after the crash.
The weather was clear with good visibility at the time of the crash, according
to the officials. A 67-year-old resident of Sanagi in the town of Tadotsu said
she saw the helicopter flying low.
Patrol routes are predetermined, and its helicopters do not normally fly close
to power lines, the Coast Guard said, adding that no abnormalities were found
on the aircraft during a regular inspection on Tuesday. The helicopter was
manufactured in 1996.
Sanagi and four other islands in the area were temporarily hit by a power
outage after the crash, according to the police and a regional utility company.
''I heard a bang right after it went dark due to the power outage,'' a
65-year-old woman on Sanagi said, adding that when she looked outside she saw a
helicopter and a few helmets floating off the shore.
Sanagi is located almost in the middle of the sea sandwiched by Honshu and
Shikoku islands, and is situated about 15 km northwest of Tadotsu port.
==Kyodo
2010-08-18 23:21:12