30 years ago

The fatal crash of a Marine Corps CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter in a remote area of Imperial County on Saturday occurred after the craft broke apart in the sky, according to parents of surviving crew members.

After the crash, Rebecca Arriola of Modesto said her son, Staff Sgt. D.G. Arriola, told her, “The copter fell apart in the sky. The rear part of the copter just fell off.”

A spokesman of the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station where the Sea Stallion was based as part of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363, said the Marine Corps would have no comment on how the crash occurred.

Master Sgt. Steve Merrill said an investigation is underway. But Keith Waggy of Spokane, Wash., said his son Cpl. R.M. Waggy, told him the rear end of the helicopter came apart in flight and that the man who was killed in the crash had been sitting in the rear portion.

Staff Sgt. James R. Andrews, 31, of Los Angeles, was pronounced dead at El Centro Regional Medical Center Saturday of “massive head and neck injuries” sustained when he ejected from the helicopter, according to Imperial County Chief Deputy Coroner David Prince.

Andrews and five others were picked up at the crash site by a second helicopter and flown to El Centro Naval Air Facility. The other five on board were treated at NAF and released, Merrill said. Martin Moore, spokesman for Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford Conn., which manufactured the helicopter, said in a telephone interview this morning that his company built 400 Sea Stallions between 1985 and 1975 for the Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.

“They’re an old work horse,” he said, but he did not know how many of them are still in service.