LOS ANGELES — Two people died, and one remains missing in the water after a medical transport helicopter flying from Santa Catalina Island to the mainland went down in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday evening, officials said.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department received a call at 7:43 p.m. for a marine rescue to recover three people from the water, agency spokesperson Jonathan Torres said.

The department learned the people were on a helicopter departing the island for the mainland and that five people were involved, Torres said. The helicopter was a Eurocopter EC 135 P2, the National Transportation Safety Board said. The helicopter was equipped as a medical transport and was owned by REACH Air Medical Services, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The missing person was the patient being transported from Catalina Island to the mainland, Coast Guard Cmdr. Mark Leahy said.

Flight tracking data show the helicopter left Catalina’s Pebbly Beach heliport and got about 175 feet above sea level about eight seconds into its planned flight before rapidly descending.

“We have a helicopter down right off of Pebbly Beach,” emergency dispatchers said over the radio, according to an audio recording of the incident. “We need Baywatch Avalon by boat. We’ve got a helicopter with potentially three people on board. ... We have people screaming for help.”

Rescuers found four people in the water. Two of them were pronounced dead, and two were rescued and transported to mainland hospitals in stable condition, Torres said. The fifth person has not been found, Torres said, though the search continued through the night and into Thursday.

The Coast Guard sent an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and crew to the island and coordinated the launch of a 45-foot response boat to assist with the incident.

Leahy said the helicopter and boat are searching for the missing person across several square miles, and are using computer software that predicts where the person might be based on environmental factors such as drift and currents.

The longer the search continues, the larger the search area will have to be, he said. The crash left a large debris field that ocean currents have been pushing back toward the island, he said, which has made it easier for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to recover some of it, Leahy said. There is now less debris and less fuel in the water, he said.

The county Fire Department has also deployed an underwater drone to locate the helicopter, believed to be at a depth of about 240 feet, but it has not yet been located, Leahy said. Once it’s found, the Fire Department will deploy its divers, he said.

If the missing person isn’t found, the search will eventually turn into a recovery, at which point the Coast Guard will disengage, because the agency does not do body recoveries. When that could happen is unclear and depends on a variety of factors, including how quickly the Coast Guard’s boat and helicopter can cover the search area. As of Thursday morning, conditions were relatively calm and good for searching, Leahy said, though the currents were stronger than expected.

Whether someone can survive in the water is also hard to predict, Leahy said, and depends on several factors, including the water temperature and whether the person is wearing a flotation device or is clinging to debris.

Aviation attorney Mike Slack, who is based in Austin, Texas, said the missing person most likely went down with the helicopter, because patients are strapped to their gurney during helicopter transports for safety. That is a “real danger” during medical transports over water, he said.

While it is too early to say exactly what caused the crash, Slack said that, with five people on board, a medical transport helicopter could exceed its maximum weight if it had a full tank of fuel.

Slack said the NTSB will have little difficulty recovering the helicopter and extracting flight data, despite the aircraft being underwater. Many helicopters are equipped with video and audio recording devices that capture everything inside, as well as flight and engine data recorders.

REACH Air Medical Services said in a statement on social media that it is aware of the incident and is gathering information and coordinating with authorities.

“Our thoughts are with the families, loved ones and colleagues affected by this tragedy,” the company said in its statement. “We are focused on supporting our team and everyone impacted during this incredibly difficult time.”

Federal aircraft records show the helicopter was manufactured by German company Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH.

The NTSB will lead the investigation, Torres said.

An NTSB spokesperson said that the agency’s investigators arrived at the scene about 11:30 a.m. Thursday to document the site and examine the helicopter once it is recovered and transported to a secure facility.

“It is very early in the investigation, and limited information is available at this time,” the spokesperson wrote.

Catalina Island has one small hospital. About 250 people are transported to the mainland by helicopter per year for medical treatment, the hospital’s chief executive previously said.

NTSB data shows that of 13 incidents involving EC 135 helicopters since 2005, not including the Wednesday crash, six have involved fatalities. The last fatal accident occurred in March 2025 in Canton, Mississippi, and involved a medical transport helicopter called AirCare 3. Three people died.

Wednesday’s fatal air disaster was not the first involving a REACH Air Medical Services helicopter. Last October, a nurse on board another REACH Eurocopter was killed, and the pilot and flight paramedic suffered serious injuries.

According to an NTSB preliminary report, “about 26 seconds” after the helicopter left UC Davis Medical Center heliport in Sacramento, “the flight paramedic reported the power had gone out and made a Mayday call as the chopper autorotated and crashed onto U.S. Route 50.”

An NTSB examination of the crash site found that an outer portion of the main rotor blade had broken off and was found stuck in a detached garage of a nearby home. The helicopter reached about 500 feet before an 11-second descent. A final report on the crash is still pending.

In November 2015, firefighters were using a REACH Eurocopter for training to simulate patient loading and unloading at the Apple Valley airport when the pilot felt a shudder and immediately landed. An NTSB investigation found that a towel had been ingested from an unsecured storage container on the ground, resulting in substantial damage to the tail rotor blades.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.