Military

Military Investigation Of Air Accident Is Underway

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published November 2, 2009 at 1:51 PM PST

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

A military investigation is underway in San Diego to determine what caused a Coast Guard aircraft and a Marine Corps helicopter to collide 50 miles off the coast last week.

Coast Guard spokesperson Allyson Conroy says civilian agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration or the National Transportation Safety Board will only be involved if asked for help, because the crash occurred between aircraft from two military agencies.

She says investigators will try to piece together answers about radio communications before the crash, and analyze the evidence.

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"They’re going through any of the wreckage that has been able to be recovered during the search and rescue phase." she said.

The debris field left in the ocean after the accident was extensive. Conroy says six Coast Guard cutters and three Navy ships in the area helped pick up the evidence. No survivors were found from the nine crew members involved.

The Coast Guard crew out of Sacramento were familiar with the airspace, called Whiskey 291, and the fact that it was frequently used by the Navy for training. It is unclear whether the Coast Guard crew had made contact with Navy air traffic controllers before the accident occurred. The Marine helicopter was one of four copters on their way to a training mission on San Clemente Island. The accident occurred soon after night fall.

Conroy said the results of the investigation will be available to the public when published, but that could be months away.

Military

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.