Helicopter crashes in rescue attempt

June 20, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Moments before a helicopter crashed during a mountain rescue attempt, the pilot radioed to his wife — a state police dispatcher — and told her he was “going down.”

Recordings of radio transmissions from State Police Sgt. Andy Tingwall, who died in the accident last week, document the final seconds before the helicopter crashed in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains east of Santa Fe.

The accident happened shortly after the helicopter picked up a hiker who had been lost. The hiker, Megumi Yamamoto of Tokyo, died in the crash. A helicopter crew member survived.

Throughout the final transmission — lasting just under a minute — Tingwall’s labored breathing can be heard as he apparently struggles to control the helicopter.

“Hey Leighann, can you hear me,” Tingwall said as he radioed the state police dispatch center, knowing that his wife was on duty.

“Affirmative,” his wife, the dispatcher, replied.

“All right. I struck a mountainside,” Tingwall said in a controlled voice. “Going down.”

“Hang on,” Tingwall abruptly says, apparently to others on the helicopter just before it hit a ridge at about 12,000 feet and then rolled down a boulder-filled slope.

The crash survivor, State Police Officer Wesley Cox, has told investigators that the helicopter’s tail rotor apparently struck something — possibly a tree — shortly after taking off with the hiker.

Yamamoto was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She became separated from her boyfriend during a hike on June 9, and called authorities for help using her cell phone.