The search for two people has been called off. One of them is a half-Kentucky couple who were on a tour chopper that crashed off the coast of Hawaii.
In a news statement on July 14, three days after the helicopter crashed a quarter mile off the Na Pali Coast in Kauai, the U.S. Coast Guard said the flights would be suspended.
On the same day of the crash, 53-year-old Amy Nichole Ruark Quintua was found “unresponsive by Kauai Ocean Safety Bureau lifeguards.” She was one of the three guests. According to FOX station WXIX-TV, she did not make it.
Police have not found her husband, James Quintua, a passenger who is 60 years old, or Guy Croyden, a driver who is 69 years old. “She and Jim had found each other and were soulmates,” Amy Gail Ruark, Amy’s sister-in-law, told WXIX-TV. “There was something about them that made you admire how much they loved each other.” We loved Jim and his family like he had been a part of ours forever.
As Ruark put it, James had a big heart and that kind of person is hard to find again. They made the world a better place. In addition, she said that her sister-in-law was “one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.”
Ruark said in the statement, “My favorite thing about [Amy] was how easily she would tell people she loved them that she loved them.” “And you knew she meant it.”
The police said the helicopter that crashed was owned by Ali‘i Kaua‘i Air Tours and Charters and was based in Lihue.
Officials from the Coast Guard say that the search for the guys took about 60 hours and “covered more than 830 square miles.”
Coast Guard Coast Guard Sector Honolulu’s search and rescue mission supervisor, Cmdr. Kristen Hahn thanked their partners in Kauai County for their help with the search, which has now been put on hold.
“This event was tragic for the families and the community as a whole, but I am comforted that our first responders have been able to gather some evidence and end our search, which may bring peace to everyone involved,” Hahn said in the news release.
The crash is being looked into by the National Transportation Safety Board.
