{"id":483407,"date":"2026-10-03T02:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T02:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483407\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T02:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T02:18:09","slug":"catalina-island-helicopter-crash-victims-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/483407\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalina Island helicopter crash victims identified"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/losangeles\/news\/helicopter-crashes-off-catalina-island-coast-rescue-efforts-underway\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Two of the three victims who died<\/a> in the Catalina Island helicopter crash were identified on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner identified one of the victims as Jessica Devries, 48, who was a nurse on the Reach Air Medical Services flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/jessica-devries.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"jessica-devries.jpg \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  Jessica DeVries, 48, was on the Reach Air Medical Services helicopter that crashed just off the coast of Catalina Island.<\/p>\n<p>                Jessica DeVries<\/p>\n<p>Loved ones identified Catalina Hernandez as the patient on the helicopter that was flying to the mainland after suffering an allergic reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My aunt Catalina was an incredible mother,&#8221; niece Tanya Chaboya Hernandez said. &#8220;A mother figure to us as like her nieces and nephews. She was a very happy person, very hard-working. It was such a traumatic incident. I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s completely hit any of us actually yet.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/catalina-hernandez.png#.png\" alt=\"catalina-hernandez.png \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  Catalina Hernandez sitting with her youngest son, who is 8 years old.<\/p>\n<p>                Romero Hernandez Family<\/p>\n<p>The helicopter&#8217;s pilot also died in the crash.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A Reach spokesperson said the company was grieving the loss of their colleagues and offered their condolences to their families on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are heartbroken by the tragic helicopter accident involving a REACH Air Medical Services aircraft. This is an incredibly difficult situation, and our hearts are with everyone affected by this tragedy,&#8221; the spokesperson wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One of Hernandez&#8217;s sons and a medic were also on the flight and airlifted to a hospital.<\/p>\n<p>The LA County Fire Department said the crash happened just before 7:50 p.m. on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Coast Guard, LA County Fire and the LA County Sheriff&#8217;s Department spent nearly 24 hours searching for Hernandez and the wreckage.<\/p>\n<p>During a news conference earlier on Thursday, LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said dive teams located the helicopter resting on the ocean floor, 218 feet below sea level.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate what caused the crash and said the helicopter that went down was a Eurocopter EC 135 P2.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two of the three victims who died in the Catalina Island helicopter crash were identified on Friday.\u00a0 The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-483407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}