On two days last June, a helicopter branded Trident Adventures was seen hovering as low as 3m above a Pacific bay in Hawaii as, on each occasion, four customers jumped out to scuba dive or snorkel.
The low-altitude hovering was said to have caused “significant turbulence” in what was a designated marine-life protected area, and was described by the environmental enforcement officers who witnessed it as ‘unprecedented’.
The Trident Adventures dive-centre offers what it describes as an exclusive PADI Helicopter Diver certification on Oahu’s south and west shores, where it is licensed to operate commercially. It charges just under $2,000 (£1,500) for the level 4 course, which involves dropping negatively buoyant from a chopper in full dive-gear.
Such activity was not however authorised on Oahu’s protected north shore, where the offences had occurred in Shark’s Cove.
Trident owner Stephen Kaplan had reportedly claimed to officials that the helicopter jumps had been private recreational outings for friends and family that would not occur again – even though advertisements promoting the same activity had been displayed in a Shark’s Cove car park the following month.
Officers from Hawaii’s Board of Land & Natural Resources (BLNR) witnessed and photographed the violations on 9 and 19 June 2025, and the board has now imposed a US $10,000 (£7,400) fine on Trident for conducting unauthorised commercial activities in state ocean waters.
The incidents were treated as separate violations, with the maximum possible fine of $5,000 applied for each of the two days.
The area is part of the Pupukea Marine Life Conservation District, established in 1983 and one of Hawaii’s most visited inshore marine areas, and the overlapping North Shore Oahu Ocean Recreation Management Area, intended to reduce user conflicts and enhance public safety on the water.
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