Helicopter crashes into bay
Responders search for two people near Bloody Point
A helicopter crashed into the Chesapeake Bay, near Bloody Point on the Eastern Shore, sometime after noon Saturday, according to Maryland Natural Resources Police and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Capt. Brian Albert said Maryland Natural Resources Police were first on the scene and are working with Maryland State Police, among others, to determine what happened. Albert said officers responded about 12:30 p.m. to a downed helicopter just south of the lighthouse.
It was a two-seater helicopter, Albert said. Officials confirmed that they are searching for two men.
Bloody Point is off Kent Island, near the Bay Bridge. Nicknamed “The Hole,” it is the deepest part of the bay at 174 feet deep.
The Anne Arundel County Fire Department sent considerable resources to assist neighboring Queen Anne’s County emergency responders, Capt. Russ Davies said. The helicopter went down about ¾ of a mile out into the water, he said.
The department sent several boats, a dive team and its Canteen Unit, which provides water and food to emergency responders, to Kent Island in support of a host of Queen Anne’s County fire companies, Davies said.
The U.S. Coast Guard launched two boats to search for the two men. Other agencies responding also include the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Talbot County Fire Department.
The Coast Guard reported winds of five to 10 knots, one-foot seas and a water temperature of 62 degrees.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone was hurt in the crash. Scott Wheatley, of the Queen Anne’s Department of Emergency Services, said in a 4 p.m. news conference that responders were still searching for the helicopter’s occupants.
The helicopter, which was not a military craft, had taken off from Tipton Airport near Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County, Wheatley said.
Trevor Hardman, a Prince George’s County firefighter, was fishing for rockfish with his 15-year-old son and his friend when he heard a “frantic” distress call over marine VHF radio.
“Another boat said they witnessed a helicopter crash in front of them near Bloody Point,” Hardman said. “I was about a mile away, so I turned around and rushed to Bloody Point.”
Hardman said it was just after noon and the heavy fog in the area had just begun to lift.
Hardman readied lifejackets to pull people out of the water, but when he arrived, he said, “there was nothing but pieces everywhere and jet fuel.” Hardman pulled a flight bag out of the water that contained a flight log and a maintenance record, he said. He said the helicopter was a Cabri G2, per the records he found. He handed the records over to the U.S. Coast Guard.
An employee at Kent Point Marina said she heard the helicopter circling over a nearby farm shortly after noon.
“Then it went over the marina and it was gone,” said Brandi Colbert, who works in the marina’s bait house.
Coast Guard officials ask that if anyone saw anything in the vicinity south of Kent Island, that they contact the Sector Maryland-National Capital Region at 410-5762525 or on VHF-FM Channel 16.