Five crew members on board military helicopter die in crash
    CRESTLINE, Calif. - March 7, 1998 00:54 a.m. EST -- A Navy heli-
 copter crashed in the rugged mountains near this resort community
 Friday, killing all five crew members on board.
    The Navy SH-60B was on a routine training mission from the North
 Island U.S. Naval Air Station west of San Diego to Las Vegas when
 air traffic controllers lost contact with it about 2 p.m. The wreck-
 age was found five hours later, Navy Lt. j.g. Charlie Brown said.
    The bodies were found at the 5,000-foot level of the San Bernar-
 dino Mountains, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles, said Cindy
 Beavers, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's
 Department.
    The helicopter is a multipurpose aircraft that deploys from
 destroyers and cruisers, but there were no weapons aboard the
 aircraft, Brown said.
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                 Fatal air crash still a mystery
 Investigators have ruled out several factors in the death of a
 Devon couple.   By Andrew Rice  INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT
 It was not carbon monoxide that made Joseph Black pass out at the
 controls of his plane as he flew over rural Georgia on Dec. 29,
 according to investigators. Neither did it cause the lightheaded-
 ness that his wife, Louise, complained of minutes later, shortly
 before she lost contact with air traffic controllers.
     The Blacks' Cessna 414, which crashed that day, had nothing
 wrong with its twin engines, investigators say.
     Thus far, the probe of the crash, which killed the Devon couple
 on impact, has proceeded mostly on "the process of elimination,"
 said Tim Monville, the National Transportation Safety Board official
 in charge of the case.
     Monville spent most of this week in Effingham County, Georgia,
 near the site of the crash, looking for clues in the wreckage. He
 also wa examining radar tapes and listening to conversations recorded
 between Louise Black and air traffic controllers as she frantically
 sought help. The Blacks were headed from Orlando, Fla., to a resort
 in White Sulfur Springs, W. Va., when, about 45 minutes into their
 flight, Louise Black radioed the tower to say her husband, an
 experienced pilot, was "lightheaded and fading out."
     Controllers tried to help her take control of the plane. As the
 plane climbed past 30,000 feet, she also reported feeling lighthead-
 ed, Monville said. The plane eventually climbed over 34,000 feet,
 about 9,000 feet above what the NTSB said is the safe altitude for
 the Cessna.
     Preliminary results, Monville said, showed the amount of carbon
 monoxide in the Blacks' bloodstreams was less than 4 percent of the
 saturation level, a trace amount insufficient to cause lightheaded-
 ness or blackouts.
     Radar recordings show the Blacks' plane climbing and abruptly
 descending several times before the crash, but Monville said this
 week's examination showed there was no mechanical problem with the
 engines.
     The focus of the investigation, he said, will now turn to the
 components that regulated cabin air pressure.
     As the plane climbed higher, a US Airways flight crew passing
 nearby advised Louise Black to put oxygen masks on herself and her
 husband. Monville said yesterday that, though an inspection of the
 crash scene showed the plane's oxygen masks were plugged in on both
 the pilot and passenger sides, a valve that controlled the flow of
 air to the masks was turned off, making them useless.
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     CRESTLINE, Calif. (March 7) - A U.S. Navy helicopter crashed in
 the rugged San Bernardino mountains during a training flight, kill-
 ing the five-member crew.
     The Navy planned to recover the bodies and wreckage from the
 remote site this morning.
     The unarmed SH-60B Seahawk aircraft took off for a routine
 training mission Friday from the North Island Naval Air Station on
 Coronado west of San Diego and was headed to Las Vegas, Navy Lt.
 j.g. Charlie Brown said.
     Air traffic controllers lost contact with the crew an hour into
 the flight. The wreckage wasn't found until five hours later as
 search crews were hindered by fog.
     The crash site was just outside of Crestline, 65 miles east of
 Los Angeles, at the 5,000-foot level of the San Bernardino
 Mountains.
     Navy officials did not immediately release names of the crew.
     The helicopter was assigned to the Helicopter Antisubmarine
 Squadron Light-47 at the Navy base. The choppers are used to locate,
 hunt and destroy submarines; for search and rescue and for maritime
 reconnaissance. The choppers are assigned to frigates, destroyers
 and cruisers and can be armed with torpedoes and air-to-surface
 missiles.
     The crash came less than three weeks after five Navy servicemen
 were killed when their Huey helicopter crashed during a training
 exercise in remote Kern River Canyon near Johnsondale, Calif.
     That helicopter clipped power lines, but it was unknown if that
 was the cause of the Feb. 18 crash.
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