AHUKINI, Kaua'i — The pilot of a Heli USA Airways tour helicopter that crashed into the ocean Friday, killing three visitors, told federal investigators he was maneuvering to avoid colliding with another helicopter when he became trapped by a thunderstorm, but the surviving passengers say that's not what they remember.

"He reported he was 2,000 feet above the water when he saw an MD500 (helicopter) coming in his direction. He said he made a left turn to avoid it and as he recovered, the downpour hit him," said Debra Eckrote, a senior investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

The only other survivors besides pilot Glen Lampton were newlyweds Karen and Bill Thorson Jr. of Beloit, Wis., who were seated in the tour helicopter's rear window seats. The couple yesterday said they saw another helicopter at some distance below the Heli USA helicopter, but did not get a sense that Lampton had to maneuver to avoid the aircraft.

"That's not familiar at all," Karen Thorson, 44, said in an interview from Wisconsin. "There was a helicopter below us — he was turning around but he was nowhere near us. Our helicopter pilot said the storm was coming and we would probably have to turn around. We never had to dodge another helicopter or nothing."

Bill Thorson Jr., 48, said that as they came over the Na Pali coast, they spotted dark storm clouds ahead.

"At the time I looked down and there was a small helicopter a long way down. It looked like a bird," he said. "It was going the other way, and at that time the pilot told us we may have to turn around, too, and we flew into the storm. We couldn't see anything in front of us. We dropped down and we almost hit the water at that time and he tried to pull us back out and then we slammed into the ocean."

The seven-passenger Aerospatiale AS350 had the pilot and five passengers on board during a circle-island flight that took off from Lihu'e Airport just before 2 p.m. Friday. The five included the Thorsons and Karen Thorson's father, Laverne Clifton, 68, and two women from Portland, Maine: Mary Soucy, 62, and Catherine Baron, 68.

Clifton and the two women from Maine died. Autopsy results were not made public yesterday.

Soucy and Baron were best friends, according to Baron's son-in-law, Mark Philbrick. He told the Portland Press Herald that Baron recently retired from her job as an administrator at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service. Soucy worked at Deering Pavilion, a housing complex in Portland for senior citizens.

The women — both widows — had spent the past two weeks touring Hawai'i and the helicopter trip likely was to be a final highlight of their trip, Philbrick told the Press Herald.

Heli USA Vice President John Power said the company was prohibited from commenting on the events leading to the crash, since it is part of a federal investigation.

Eckrote said Lampton, 43, reported that after veering left to avoid the other helicopter, he entered a region of heavy rain. The pilot planned to make a 180-degree turn to get out of it, she said, and had completed 160 degrees of the turn when he hit a downdraft.

"He lost lift and went into a rapid descent, straight down," until the helicopter hit the ocean, damaging its tail rotor, Eckrote said. She said evidence on the aircraft confirms that the tail boom hit the water, and there were signs the tail rotor may have been damaged. The pilot managed to get the helicopter airborne, but without the tail rotor, it immediately went into a "rapid left turn" before hitting the water again about 200 yards offshore of Ha'ena on Kaua'i's north coast.

Bill Thorson Jr. said he feared the Heli USA aircraft would be blown into the nearby cliffs. He estimated the helicopter dropped for five to seven seconds before hitting the water the first time.

"That is a long time. The only thing the pilot said over and over was, 'Mayday, mayday, mayday.' I can only attribute it to the storm. We were flying all right up until that point."

For a few hopeful moments, it appeared as if the helicopter might avoid ditching, he said, as the pilot struggled to remain aloft.

"I looked down and we were almost a foot, a foot and a half above the water," Thorson said. "If a wave came up it would have washed the helicopter. Buzzers started going off."

"At that time the pilot said, 'Oh, sh--,' and he started to pull again out of it, and for maybe five seconds we were ascending and turning away from the island. I guess he was trying to get away from the storm or the cliffs or whatever. Then all of a sudden we were instantly smashed onto the ocean. As soon as the rotors hit the water, we were engulfed by water."

Lampton told Eckrote he could see all passengers moving, working to don their life preservers or release their seat belts.

"Everyone was alive and trying to help themselves at that time," Eckrote said.

Then the chopper tipped and turned over, sinking to the bottom in 20 to 30 feet of water.

"When it tilted on its side, it exploded into pieces," Thorson said. "It took me two or three good strokes to reach the surface." Everyone got out except for one of the Maine women, whose body was later recovered, still strapped into the middle front seat. The bodies of Clifton and the other Maine woman were found floating in the sea.

As the Wisconsin couple and Lampton tried to stay afloat in the water, Thorson said the pilot told him, "The wind blew us down."

"He never said anything about a helicopter and I was swimming alongside of him. Those were his exact words to me," he said.

Eckrote said her preliminary assessment of the helicopter wreckage is that the aircraft was functioning properly when it first hit the water.

"There is no evidence of mechanical failure or malfunction. There is no evidence of a loss of power," she said.

Investigators planned an interview last night or today with the pilot of the MD500, a four-seat helicopter flown by two Kaua'i tour companies. The pilot's identity was not released.

Back in Maine, Philbrick told the Portland Press Herald that Baron retired in order to spend more time with her grandchildren and to enjoy gardening and traveling. "They were near the end of their second week of vacation in Hawai'i and taking that stupid helicopter trip was kind of a highlight. ... People are really going to miss her."

Soucy's sister-in-law, Rosemarie Soucy, told the Press Herald she was a petite and gentle woman who enjoyed camping and cross country skiing.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com and Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.