By MIKE GLENN
Gunmen in two different vehicles opened fire on another car in north Houston on Tuesday night, killing one passenger and sending a second to the hospital, police said.
Others occupants in the vehicle that was attacked told police they were driving on West Rankin Road near Spears Road about 9 p.m. when a sports utility vehicle and an Acura pulled up beside them. The assailants began riddling the victims' white Mitsubishi with gunfire from a large-caliber pistol and a shotgun.
"None of them that we talked to so far know the people that shot at them," said Sgt. Russ Hayes with the Houston police homicide division. "They are saying that they were shot at unprovoked."
An 18-year-old in the front passenger seat was struck in the head and died in the car. A 17-year-old in the back seat also was shot in the head but survived the attack and was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital.
"He's apparently stable right now," Hayes said early today.
The victims fled but soon were stopped at Ella near Pennbright when a Harris County Sheriff's deputy spotted sparks flying from the heavily-damaged vehicle.
"One of the tires had been shot out (and) they were running on the rim," Hayes said.
While they claimed to be innocent victims of the assault, detectives said the people in the Mitsubishi also had been armed.
"We have reason to believe that they stopped their vehicle and threw the weapons out," Hayes said. "We're looking for those right now."
Police at the scene said they didn't have a viable description of the suspects. The motive also was unknown late Tuesday.
By ERIC HANSON
No usable voices were found on the cockpit recorder of a helicopter that crashed in the Gulf of Mexico last week after leaving Galveston for an oil-drilling ship, federal officials said Tuesday.
The voice recorder was recovered Saturday from the sea floor and taken to Washington, D.C., where experts hoped it would provide clues about the cause of the crash that killed 10 people.
The final two bodies were recovered Monday night by searchers in the area where other bodies had been found, about 70 miles south of Galveston. The bodies were taken to the Galveston County medical examiner's office in Texas City.
Autopsies showed all 10 died from blunt force trauma, said Dr. Stephen Pustilnik, chief medical examiner.
Officials said the bodies of Jason Petitjean, 34, of Rayne, La., and Jeff Langley, 42, of Kountze, were found on the sea floor near the area where aircraft debris had been found.
The bodies of all 10 people on board the Sikorsky 76-A helicopter, owned by Alaska-based Era Aviation, have been found.
The aircraft, carrying two crew members and eight passengers and chartered by Unocal, left Galveston's Scholes International Airport about 6:45 p.m. March 23. One of the eight passengers was a Unocal employee, and the other seven were contractors. They were headed to an offshore drilling ship near South Padre Island.
At 7:23 that evening, a company dispatcher tried to contact the aircraft by radio but received no response.
An air and sea search-and-rescue operation was launched and floating wreckage was found March 24. Later that day, four bodies were found floating in the water about 70 miles south of Galveston. Four more were discovered Friday morning on the sea floor in the aircraft wreckage.