Donald E. Sellers

Inglewood man listed among crash victims

From staff and news service reports

An Inglewood man has been identified as one of I7 U.S. Marines presumed dead in a helicopter crash off the southern coast of Japan, military officials said today.

Capt. Donald E. Sellers, 27, was on the craft that plunged into the ocean Monday, after the pilot reported by radio that he was experiencing mechanical problems.

Sellers was one of three aviators on the helicopter, but officials are unsure who was flying the craft, said Capt. Mark Hough, a Marine spokesman in Washington D.C. One acted as pilot, another co-pilot and the third was simply catching a ride from Iwakuni, a Marine installation in southwest Japan, to the Marine base in Futemma, Okinawa, Hough said.

Born in Hawthorne, Sellers joined the Marine Corps nine years ago. He listed Inglewood, where his mother Joan Ireland lives, as his hometown on service records, Hough said. Sellers had been stationed in Tustin, Calif., where he lived with his wife, Barbara, 29.

Sellers was on a six-month stint at the Okinawa Marine base, where the heavy helicopter unit had gone on their normal rotation. His wife, who went along, remained in Okinawa today, Hough said. The couple was to return to their home base in Tustin next month.

Meanwhile, search efforts were called off today for the victims. The Marine Corps command in Okinawa issued a statement saying: "An accompanying helicopter witnessed the impact and observed that there were no survivors. All aboard are missing and presumed dead."

Relatives of six more of the victims have been notified, Haugh said. Those missing included Master Sgt. John Nicolas Gruber 38, of Aptos, Calif. The Japanese Maritime Safety Agency had five ships and two aircraft patrolling the area where the big CH-53D helicopter went down, but turned them back late today "because the U.S. military has judged that there are no survivors," spokesman Takeo Kobayashi said.

An overnight search by Japanese patrol boats yielded only debris, including some personal items and an unopened 12-man life raft.

The casualties were the highest involving U.S. military personnel in the area since March 1984, when another Marine Corps CH-53D helicopter crashed into a Korean moun-tainside during military exercises, killing 18 Okinawa-based Marines and 11 Koreans.

A Marine Corps officer at Kadina Air Base in Okinawa, who asked not to be identified, said U.S, rescue aircraft essentially quit the search late Monday because, 'We knew they were all dead."

Lt. CoL John Toner. a U.S. Air Force public affairs officer at Kadena, said officials decided to call off the search after finding so little debris in the crash area, about 25 miles off the southern Japan island of Yukushima, after a 24-hour period of constant surveillance.

The Marine helicopter went down while on the 195-mile return flight from Iwakuni.

Source: Daily Breeze, Tuesday, May 7, 1985