Airlift Team Remembered At Memorial Service -- 3,000 Attend Private Rites At Boeing Field

They were the kind of people who never looked first before going to another's aid. They gave their lives to serve others, colleagues and friends said yesterday of three members of a medical airlift team killed when their helicopter crashed.

"Your loved ones were incredible people," the Rev. Steve Pace told the 3,000 mourners gathered for a memorial service at Boeing Field. The service was not open to the public.

The victims' friends fought tears as they described the loss of pilot Lee Bothwell, 42, of Puyallup, and nurses Marna Fleetwood, 40, of Brier, and Amy Riebe, 41, of Seattle.

"We've gone back to work knowing any one of us could have been on that aircraft. We've had to cope with our grief and our fears," Airlift Northwest chief flight nurse Deborah Sampson told the audience.

After six days of probing Puget Sound with divers, sonar and submersible video cameras, rescue workers and salvage crews have not located the sunken medical-evacuation helicopter that crashed off Bainbridge Island last Monday.

"They'll probably be searching throughout the weekend," said Debra Eckrote, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) safety inspector in charge of investigating the fatal crash. "If they don't find anything, the search will probably be suspended on Monday."

The end of the search means the close of the NTSB investigation into the cause of the crash. If wreckage of the Agusta A109A helicopter is not found, Eckrote said, the cause of the crash "will have to go undetermined.

"There's not enough good strong evidence to come up with a probable cause," Eckrote said. "I have to work by the facts."

Eckrote cited expense and feasibility as reasons for suspending the search.

The undisclosed cost of hiring the deep-sea salvage crew is being paid for by United States Aircraft Insurance Group, the insurer for Airlift Northwest.

Eckrote said her investigation has focused on interviews with witnesses to the crash, and on an examination of helicopter debris that floated to the surface and was recovered just after the crash.

Those pieces include portions of all four rotors, parts of the lower belly of the structure and parts of the doors. No tail boom, engines or transmission were found. All told, less than one-eighth of the helicopter was recovered. Eckrote said she had partially reconstructed the helicopter with those parts but that no conclusions could be drawn.

"It's very thin evidence," she said.

Eckrote said it appeared the rotors were attached to the helicopter and were moving when it hit the water, judging from the physical evidence presented by the blades. Her preliminary investigation also indicates the helicopter hit the water at a high speed.

People who saw the helicopter as it flew to Bainbridge Island early Monday morning to pick up a pregnant woman indicated it was flying at very low altitude above the water before it crashed, Eckrote said.

It was the first significant accident in more than 28,000 missions in Airlift Northwest's 13-year history. The company that supplies the helicopters and pilots, Hospital Air Transport in Portland, reported flying 8,700 accident-free hours since it began its contract with Airlift Northwest.

For the past few days, salvage crews with Deep Water Recovery Services have searched the dark, 700-foot-deep water off Bainbridge Island using a sonar device and an unmanned submersible craft carrying a video camera.

Computer images of the floor of the Sound have shown several objects, Eckrote said, but they turned out to be large boulders and other things.

"There is not going to be anything intact," she said. "What's going to be on the bottom of the Sound are a lot of little pieces."

"People don't realize that when you hit the water it's just like hitting a rock wall," she added. "It's not going to give all that much."

Material from the Associated Press is included in this report.