An empty tour van that plunged into Onomea Bay two weeks ago was retrieved over the weekend.
A five-person tour group and their KapohoKine Adventures guide were standing about 20 feet away from the 13-passenger van at the Onomea Bay overlook around 8:30 a.m. June 2 when the unoccupied vehicle rolled over the cliff bank and into the water about 130 feet below.
According to a press release from the company, “the 2006 Ford E350, 13-passenger van was in park with engine on and emergency brake engaged.”
After coming to rest, the van sat in a very difficult to reach spot, on the edge of the cliff in shallow, rocky water at the edge of the bay. It took KapohoKine’s insurer and a safety consultant some time to coordinate the van’s extraction, according to spokeswoman Lori Michimoto.
“The KapohoKine Adventures van was removed without incident over the weekend,” she said. “It was hauled out by boat.”
Over the course of the last two weeks, the van was battered and pushed about 100 yards closer to shore by heavy surf that tore pieces of the vehicle off the frame bit by bit, said Jeff Boggeln, garden manager at the nearby Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. Pieces of the grill, foam, rubber and other debris regularly washed up on shore.
On Saturday, “they came in with a boat, dropped off divers to survey the area, and then tied straps to what was left of the van. It was basically the frame with the wheels and the shocks and springs,” he said. “It was all scattered everywhere.”
The removal team backed the boat up to the vehicle and pulled it off the rocks to a sandy area, where they enclosed it in a large bag which was then inflated, floating the van on the surface of the water.
“They took it out to deep water and then came back in with the dingy to collect more of the debris,” Boggeln said. “We helped them get it out of the valley.”
The clean-up concluded on Sunday.
Email Colin M. Stewart at cstewart@hawaiitribune-herald.com.