Gloucester man part of downed Coast Guard crew in Hawaii

HONOLULU

A Gloucester man was part of a four-person U.S. Coast Guard helicopter crew that crashed during a training exercise in Hawaii.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Joshua Nichols, 27, was the flight mechanic aboard the helicopter that crashed Thursday night, during a training flight five miles south of the Honolulu International Airport.

Nichols, Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Wischmeier, 44, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., Petty Officer 1st Class David Skimin, 38, of San Bernardino, Calif., were each recovered from the downed HH-65 Thursday night and pronounced dead at Queen's Medical Center.

The Coast Guard continued to search through the weekend for the pilot, Cmdr. Thomas Nelson, 42, of Staten Island, N.Y., the executive officer for Air Station Barbers Point. The executive officer is the second in charge of a Coast Guard air station.

The search for Nelson was suspended Sunday.

The crash occurred Thursday night while the crew was performing small boat hoists with a 47-foot motor lifeboat from Station Honolulu, according to a news release. The exercise prepares aircrews and boat crews for hoisting injured people from a boat to the aircraft and is performed daily across the country and at least three times a week in Hawaii.

It’s the first fatal Coast Guard aviation mishap in Hawaii since 1982. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.

Coast Guard crews will continue to recover debris from the downed helicopter and investigative teams will work to determine the cause of the accident.

Over the weekend, search crews on 91 patrols scoured 3,000 square miles from Barbers Point to Diamond Head and 40 miles off shore, according to a news release from the Coast Guard.

Coast Guard air crews from Air Stations San Francisco, Humboldt Bay, Calif., and Kodiak, Alaska, were flown out to augment search crews and maintain the Coast Guard's ability to respond to other calls during the weekend search.

Crews from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, Hawaii Air National Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary, the state fire department at Honolulu International Airport and state Department of Land and Natural Resources assisted in the search.

Nichols had served at Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point since July 2007 and had eight years of Coast Guard experience. Previously, he had served at Aviation Training Center Mobile, Ala., Air Station San Francisco and the cutter Morgenthau, ported in Alameda, Calif.