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'We're alive. It happened too quickly to be scared.'

- Geoff Fawler, passenger in Blue Hawaiian helicopter that landed safely in cane field

KAHULUI - A Blue Hawaiian helicopter made a "precautionary landing" in a cane field near the intersection of Hana Highway and Hansen Road on Monday afternoon. The cane was so high that the helicopter was barely visible, and rescue workers had a bit of a struggle to get to it through the tangled stalks.

All six passengers and the pilot were unhurt, police said.

The helicopter possibly had engine trouble, according to police, although Blue Hawaiian Helicopters President Patti Chevalier said that was not confirmed and that the landing was precautionary.

"I'm proud of our pilot," she said.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, "the pilot issued a mayday due to an engine warning light." The Eurocopter EC130 sustained minor damage to the tail boom, the FAA reported.

Passenger Geoff Fawler of England also commended the pilot.

"He was brilliant, the way he put it down," Fawler said after he and the five other passengers were led from the cane field to the side of Hana Highway by an airport firefighter.

Fawler described the landing as "quite a bump."

"It wasn't that bad."

Fawler and some of the other passengers even managed to smile after the incident.

"We're alive," he said.

Although his wife appeared more shaken up over the incident, Fawler said: "It happened too quickly to be scared."

Police said the helicopter was making its way back to the Kahului Airport from a sightseeing trip to Molokai, and at around 1,000 feet the pilot decided to make an emergency landing.

The helicopter, which landed upright, was in the middle of a cane field about 100 yards from Hana Highway.

Chevalier, who went into the cane field, said she did not see any damage to the helicopter.

She said the pilot has been flying for the company for a couple of years and has a number of years' experience of flying on Maui.

The incident was reported at 12:41 p.m. and police, fire crews and an airport fire crew responded.

* Cane field landing. There was no damage to the tail boom or any other part of a Blue Hawaiian helicopter that made an emergency landing in a cane field in Central Maui on Monday.

The Federal Aviation Administration corrected its earlier report of damage to the chopper that appeared in a story on Tuesday on Page A1.

* This article includes a correction from the original published on Tuesday, November 17, 2009.