Submarines May Be Used To Recover Copter, Bodies

A Canadian company has proposed sending submarines to the bottom of the nation’s deepest lake to pull out the wreckage of a helicopter and the bodies of the two people aboard.

Can-Dive Marine Services Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C., supplied the remote-controlled submersible and one-person submarine that searched for geothermal vents on the floor of Crater Lake in 1988 and 1989.

The vessels’ sonar could help locate the wreckage, and attach a cable to it to winch it out, the company’s vice president for special projects, Jim English, said Monday.

Park rangers want to know more before deciding whether to try raising the wreckage, said Crater Lake National Park spokesman Kent Taylor.

Rangers will be taking water samples at the crash site to monitor pollution, such as fuel and hydraulic fluids, he added.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Federal Aviation Administration and the company that owns the helicopter were at the park trying to learn more about the Saturday crash.

The helicopter crashed into the water and sank about a mile from shore off Rim Village, where the lake is about 1,500 feet deep.

Taylor said the Park Service does not know what the helicopter was doing over the lake. Aircraft are supposed to keep 2,000 feet above the caldera rim of the volcano.

Pilot George W. Causey, 52, of Enumclaw, Wash., was flying a demonstration helicopter from Seattle to Las Vegas for a business aviation conference.

Edward Tulleners Jr., 45, of West Linn, Ore., was the only known passenger on board. The helicopter had made a stop in Aurora, about 22 miles south of Portland.