Island Express Helicopters

Island Express Helicopter, Long Beach, CA

Island Express Helicopter landing area, Santa Catalina Island

Island Express Helicopters [IEX] has been operating tours, charters and exclusive Santa Catalina Island trips since 1982. The company services all of southern California, with exclusive-use helicopters at the Queen Mary in Long Beach and the Catalina Cruise terminal in San Pedro. In April 2013 a new terminal opened at the Orange County Airport. Island Express flies three turbine-powered six-passenger helicopters. Its maintenance facility is at Long Beach Airport.

On November 30, 1985, there was a mid-air collision at their terminal in San Pedro of their Bell 206-L Jet Ranger in which there was one fatality, Hossein Habibi (28), and 11 survivors.

On January 26, 2020, an Island Express Helicopter crash in Calabasas killed professional basketball player, Kobe Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, the pilot Zaran Zobayan, and seven other passengers. The helicopter entered low cloud cover, which caused the pilot to lose his sense of orientation and thus lose control of the helicopter.

In the News~

December 2, 1985 [LAT]: “ Stark Tragedy of helicopter crash ends a joyous outing. It was to be like a delayed honeymoon. But it ended in tragedy with the recent bridegroom, Hossein Habibi, 28, of Glendale, killed and 11 others injured in a rare mid-air collision of two commuter helicopters maneuvering to land at the Catalina Air and Sea Terminal in San Pedro. "They were very much acting like newlyweds," said Russell Clendenen, 34, of Pitman, N.J., in recounting the last moments of the Saturday afternoon crash at the helipad located under the Vincent Thomas suspension bridge. Habibi, an Iranian immigrant who worked as a manager at a McDonald's restaurant, had been sitting in a Bell "Long Ranger" helicopter owned by Helitrans of San Pedro, that was about to land after a daylong excursion to Santa Catalina Island. Next to him was his wife of three months, Stacy, 22, whom he had met last year while both were working at Yellowstone National Park.”

April 30, 1992 [Avalon Bay News]: “Helicopter makes emergency landing. Last Saturday morning sirens rang out across Avalon town. No one knew what it was until we found that a helicopter of Island Express had to make an emergency landing on the water about half a mile off Pebbly Beach. Due to the great job of the pilot, Monica, no one was hurt although they did take on a little water up to their ankles. One of the passengers, Kenneth Perry, of Covina, California told ABN of how they were towed to shore and he said Monica should be commended. She kept a cool head in what could have been a very disastrous turn of events and simply landed the plane in the water and radioed for help. The plane suffered from engine failure and is being repaired.”

July 21, 2023 [crankyflier.com]: “...There is scheduled service from Long Beach to Catalina by IEX Helicopters. It’s $179 per person one way, which was more than $100 more than the Catalina Express boat. The helicopter takes 15 minutes while the boat takes a little over an hour. Is it worth the extra cost? Probably not. But it was a lot of fun. IEX you may know better as Island Express. Still not familiar with the name? That’s the company that was operating Kobe Bryant’s doomed flight. I honestly can’t quite figure out what the story is with this company. Many of the flights, including ours, are operated by Maverick Helicopters which you probably know as that annoying company buzzing around your hotel room on the Strip in Vegas. (They also do Grand Canyon and Maui tours.) One person told me Maverick was buying IEX, but I can’t find that mentioned anywhere. For what it’s worth the IEX Instagram account says IEX is “powered by” Maverick. So something clearly happened there. Booking the service is not as straightforward as I’d have liked. You pay online, but you just have to select a window of time. They say they’ll call you within a day to set the exact time...IEX has its main offices at the Long Beach Airport, but the scheduled trips to Catalina depart 10 miles to the south from the Queen Mary Heliport (CL07), right next to the old Spruce Goose Dome (now home to Carnival Cruise Line’s check-in facility) and the Queen Mary itself. The pilots report to LGB and then fly down to pick up passengers..The helicopter is pretty cool-looking with panoramic windows all the way around. There are three abreast in each of the two rows onboard. The pilot was obviously in the front left, but I took the middle and my soon took the other window while the man behind the desk had the entire back row to himself. The legroom is pretty great up front on the side..,The helicopters head to Pebbly Beach Seaplane Base (L11), about a mile southeast of town. The pilot asked if we needed a taxi, but we did not. We’d walk it. He made a call to air traffic control and soon we were on the ground.”