Lang and Thomson were on their way to visit friends in Maui and had contacted the Moloka’i tower for clearance just before 3:30 p.m. Wednesday. They say the tower operator asked if they were able to hear an “ELT” or Emergency Locator Transmitter. They tuned into the signal, but it was faint so they say they began searching for it and scanning the area for wreckage.
The couple says they reached Kalaupapa about five minutes later and spotted something in the water off the North-West tip of the peninsula near the beginning of runway 5.
The helicopter pilot was talking to the tower at Molokai Airport, not KALAUPAPA airport, which closes at 15.30 and there was no one in attendance.
So who notified MOLOKAI there had been an accident? How did they know there was a need to identify an Emergency Locater Transmitter signal? That was the reason why the helicopter pilot went looking for the aircraft. He didn't just stumble across it...
It must have been the Pilot of the Cessna who contacted MOLOKAI TOWER, right?
JUST BEFORE 3.30 PLUS 5 MINUTES.
Yeah, Lang says he contacted the tower operator at Molokai when they found the downed plane. That must have been around 3:30. It wasn’t clear which airport they went to but it makes sense if it was the Kalaupapa Airport and nobody was there. It doesn’t make sense, though, that the tower operator at Molokai knew there was a plane in the ocean at 3:30 but according to Mark Miller, nobody alerted emergency crews until a navy plane just happened to be doing touch-and-goes and reported the crash to the Coast Guard and fire crews.
Oops. That wasn’t very clear. Kawasaki wasn’t able to contact anybody because of the cliffs that block reception there, but the planes have built-in electronic locator transmitters that are activated when there is enough force to suggest a crash. That must have been giving a faint signal to the Molokai tower, which the operator asked Lang about when he called for clearance to go to Maui. When Lang found the downed plane he contacted the Molokai tower operator again to tell him/her there was a plane down in the water.
Looking at the webpages for the Maui Co Fire Department, they have 3 fire stations on Molokai but it doesn’t look like they have helicopters. The county says they have one helicopter and 3 rescue boats. Probably the helicopter is on Maui. Maybe each of the 3 islands in the county (Maui, Molokai, and Lanai) has a rescue boat. The Coast Guard came helicopters, plane, boats, and crews came from Oahu. The fire crew was from Molokai.