Helicopter

A hearing on whether Sea Stallion helicopter crew chief Cpl. Kirk Hill will be formally charged in his admitted tampering with a military aircraft at the Tustin Marine Corps Air Station was postponed Wednesday to allow the defense more time to prepare its case. "It's a potential capital case," said Capt. Thomas May, who represented Hill at the hearing Wednesday. "We should do a thorough investigation and not rush through it."

Jet fuel was pouring from the bullet hole when the Los Angeles Police Department helicopter struck by sniper fire Sunday in Van Nuys made an emergency landing, authorities said Monday. The pilot "heard a loud thump outside the aircraft and took evasive action," said Robert Price, chief pilot for the police Air Support Division. "He knew the fuel tank had been hit — he could smell the fuel and some of it got on the windshield. " The names of the pilot and observer aboard the A-Star American-Eurocopter AS350 B2 were not released.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday took a swipe at the website that released secret military video of a 2007 helicopter gunship incident in Iraq in which civilians, including two news agency employees, were killed. Gates said the videos released by the group WikiLeaks were out of context and provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield, comparing it to war as seen "through a soda straw." "These people can put out whatever they want and are never held accountable for it," said Gates, speaking to reporters aboard his plane en route to Lima, Peru, for a defense ministers conference this week.

The CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, a twin-rotor transport manufactured by Boeing Vertol, has been involved in eight major accidents since 1980. Sept. 3, 1987: Four Marines were killed when CH-46E crashed during night maneuvers at Camp Pendleton in northern San Diego County. Feb. 12, 1987: Three Marines were killed when a Marine reservist CH-46E helicopter crashed in the mountains near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

Three people were killed Saturday when their vintage military helicopter crashed after striking power lines in San Bernardino County. Federal Aviation Administration officials said the 1951 Piasecki PV-18 helicopter took off from Adelanto Airport at 8:30 a.m. headed to Flabob Airport in Riverside. It crashed and burst into flames a mile into its flight. -- Mike Anton

A helicopter crashed in the port city of Tianjin on Friday, killing all 11 people aboard, including a Japanese pilot, the Japanese Embassy said. The helicopter, which belonged to the Japanese company Asahi Koyo, crashed near Tianjin airport, embassy officials said. According to the state-run Civil Aviation Administration of China, the helicopter had two pilots. One was Japanese, but he was not identified, the officials said; the other 10 people aboard were Chinese. The officials said the nature of the flight was not known although they said it was possible that Asahi Koyo is a company involved in marine resource development.

Searchers just north of Mt. St. Helens on Wednesday found a helicopter that crashed, killing all three aboard, including a man on assignment to photograph the volcano for National Geographic, officials said. Nine planes and 11 helicopters were involved in the search for the helicopter, which had taken off Monday. The wreckage was sighted Wednesday afternoon about two miles north of the volcano crater, said Air National Guard spokeswoman Karole Scott.

A father who held his two children hostage in a commandeered helicopter and demanded to be flown to a U.S. Air Force base in Japan was overpowered by police after a five-hour siege today at Brisbane Airport. Police identified the man as Milomar Petrovic, 41, of Yugoslavia. They said he had recently divorced and won custody of his children.