Kerry Hanes spent the better part of Thursday scouring a steep and craggy slope for the pieces of a state police helicopter that crashed there during a rescue mission more than two weeks ago.

With a large internal frame pack on his back, he labored under cloudy skies that occasionally threatened rain to find every last piece of the wreckage he could. He placed the pieces in two large, white bags, which were attached to a recovery helicopter and flown across the Pecos Wilderness to a staging area near Pecos.

After Hanes sent the bags on, he continued combing the area, including the site of the helicopter's initial impact on the northwest ridge of the semi-circle of peaks and ridges that cascade from the 12,622-foot summit of Santa Fe Baldy, and around Lake Katherine.

The state police helicopter, designed to fly at high altitudes, crashed June 9 in bad weather after two officers picked up a lost hiker who'd become separated from her boyfriend. Sgt. Andy Tingwall, the pilot, and the hiker, Megumi Yamamoto, died in the crash after they were thrown from the helicopter on impact, despite apparently wearing seat belts. Officer Wesley Cox, 29, who remained strapped in the fuselage during its tumble down the steep slope, survived.

On Thursday, Hanes, who is also a member of an Albuquerque-based search and rescue team that was at the scene two days after the initial crash, pointed to a small pine tree near the top of the boulder-strewn slope and said that was the highest point where wreckage was found. That item was a piece of equipment from the helicopter that Hanes said fell out or was thrown out of the aircraft. Police have said the helicopter might have struck a tree with its tail rotor, causing it to crash.

Hanes said the fuselage came to rest about 50 yards uphill from a small lake that is unnamed on National Forest Service maps of the area but is located just over the northwest ridge from Lake Katherine. The wreckage was scattered down the slope for about 700 yards, he said.

Besides the bags of smaller pieces of wreckage, the recovery team also flew out two large pieces — the fuselage and the tail boom — on Thursday, Hanes said.

The recovery effort included members of the National Transportation Safety Board, state police, a Greeley, Colo., aircraft-recovery contractor and numerous other subcontractors like Hanes, said state police spokesman Lt. Eric Garcia. The recovery lasted from about 9 a.m. until about 2 p.m. and went off without a hitch despite concerns about the weather, he said.

Everything collected from the wreckage of the 2003 Agusta A-109E, which was acquired by state police in 2003, was taken from the staging area on flat-bed trucks to an undisclosed site in Santa Fe for the night, Garcia said. The pieces will be sent to an NTSB facility in Denver for further examination, he said.

The NTSB's final report on the crash isn't expected for months.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.