UPDATED 11/10/11 3:20 p.m.

Five people have died in a helicopter crash on east Molokai.

The helicopter belonged to Blue Hawaiian tours, according to Maui County Spokesman Rod Antone. Firefighters pulled five bodies from the wreckage, after an initial 911 call came at 12:23 p.m. on Thursday, he said.

The chopper had taken off from Maui and was on a tour of Molokai when it crashed approximately 300 yards from Kilohana Elementary School.

The helicopter company’s owner, David Chevalier, told the AP the four passengers were two men and two women from the mainland. The fifth body was that of the pilot.

“A helicopter with at least three people on board went down on the east end of Molokai. The helicopter is engulfed in flames,” Ian Gregor, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration Pacific Division, told Civil Beat in an email shortly after the crash.

Gregor couldn’t say whether anyone on board is in Hawaii for APEC.

Blue Hawaiian is Hawaii’s leading commercial helicopter tour company. Their website was down as of 3 p.m. Thursday.

The chopper that crashed was built in 2010 and registered to a Nevada Helicopter Leasing LLC out of Henderson, Nev.

Gregor said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the accident.

He said the NTSB typically posts a preliminary report online within a week or two, and could take several months to determine probable cause for accidents. Neither agency releases crash victims’ identities, he said.