AW2 William "Bill" "Nick" Rolf Nolte
HSL-43  SH-60B
BUNO: 162343
Born: August 3, 1965
Died: September 30, 1990
Hometown: Minnesota
His aircraft crashed off the Oregon coast while trying to fly back to the boat.  They were reportedly low on fuel and may have starved the engines. Bill is memorialized at the Ft Snelling National Cemetary, S. Minneapolis, MN Section MB, Site 70.
Shipmates Comments:
AW2 (AW) Adam Taylor:
AW2 Nolte was the kind of guy you knew could always make you laugh.  He lived two doors down from me in the barracks at North Island.

AT2 (Civ) David E. Radcliff:
I served with Nick on Det 10 on board the USS Crommelin (FFG-37). "Nick" (as we called him , after the actor) was a hard worker, who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty with the maintance crew. At that time, we were flying at dusk and dawn. Nick needed some night hours, so he just switched that day to the dusk flight. The day time crew just launched the bird with less than a hour of sunlight left. I went down to the galley to see the evening's movie (Eddie Murphy's "Coming to America") when no more than 15 to 30 minutes later, emergency flight quarters was called. One of the engines was smoking, so they had shut it down.
Oceanlord 24 raced towards Crommelin and visa versa. After the two passed each other, the helo did a high speed banking turn to come around and align with the flight deck. That's when the only engine running stalled and slammed the bird into the water. Initial theory was that the engine was staved from fuel because the fuel dump pump didn't shut off or the high bank turn starved the engine because of the little amount of fuel left after a fuel dump. I think the final out come was that they over torqued the rotor head in combination to being on a single engine caused the stall.
Nick was good man and I thank you for memoralizing him.

Media Articles:
Search for Copter Ends
N.Y. Times, Oct 3, 1990
MANZANITA, Ore., Oct 2 (AP)--The search for three crew members of a Navy helicopter off the Oregon coast has been called off, the authorities said today. The SH-60B Lamps Mark III helicopter was taking part in an American-Canadian military exercise when it crashed in good weather Sunday night off the coast of Cape Falcon, said a Navy spokesman. The Navy identified the missing men as the pilot, Lieut. Cmdr. Paul K. Miller, 36 years old, of Elgin, Ill; the co-pilot, Ensign Timothy E. Hanusin, 27, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and William R. Nolte, 25, aviation antisubmarine warfare operator 2d class, from Minneapolis.