HONOLULU (AP) -- Rescuers are searching Pacific waters off Oahu for a missing crew member from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter.

The Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter crashed last night while conducting search-and-rescue drills with a lifeboat. Three crewmen were killed. Their bodies have been recovered.

Rear Admiral Manson Brown is the Coast Guard district commander. He calls the situation "a very difficult case because rescuers are being rescued."

Witnesses aboard the lifeboat and a passing Air Force transport saw the crash.

The crash is the first Coast Guard helicopter accident in Hawaii since January 1982. In that incident, the aircraft crashed into a cliff during a rescue mission in bad weather. Three people were killed.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)