HONOLULU (AP) — U.S. Coast Guard and military crews searched the ocean off Hawaii on Wednesday for five people aboard an Army helicopter that went down during a nighttime training exercise.
Officials at Wheeler Army Airfield near Honolulu reported losing communications around 10 p.m. Tuesday with the crew of a UH-60 Black Hawk, the Coast Guard said in a news release.
Responding teams spotted a debris field about 2 miles (3 kilometers) west of Kaena Point, Oahu, shortly before 11:30 p.m., the release said.
Honolulu Fire Department crews found parts of a fuselage and a helmet in the debris field, Capt. David Jenkins said.
A Coast Guard plane, two helicopters and several boats are being used in the search across an area with light winds and 2-foot seas.
Two Black Hawk crews were conducting training between Kaena Point and Oahu’s Dillingham Airfield northwest of Honolulu when communications were lost, officials said. Clouds and a few showers were in the area at the time.
Night training offshore is routine, said Lt. Col. Curtis Kellogg, public affairs officer for the Army’s 25th Infantry Division.
The search began immediately after one aircrew lost visual and video contact with the other helicopter, Kellogg said.
The two helicopters are elements of the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade.
The UH-60 Black Hawk is a four-bladed, twin-engine utility helicopter manufactured for the Army by Sikorsky Aircraft starting in the 1970s.
More than 3,000 Black Hawk aircraft are in service around the world, according to Sikorsky’s parent company Lockheed Martin. The U.S. Army owns 2,300 of them.
In April, one crew member was killed and two others were injured when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed onto a golf course in Maryland during a routine training flight.
In 2015, 11 crew members were killed when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the water off Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
Even peace time is dangerous for those it the military.
Very true. With such a large military, there’s plenty of opportunity for accidents. But is it just me, or do we seem to be having more of them lately?
One similarity between the Charlottesville helicopter crash (its second on record) and many military accidents – including such communications breakdowns as the one that led to the US strafing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan – seems to be a willful neglect of known maintenance issues. State police and the Pentagon alike always want more funding and they always want new equipment. And they are always making the case that denying them is gravely dangerous. This may be so, but I wonder if it isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is there something here that we can compare to the spike in broken smartphones every time a new model is released? Are agencies putting budget and acquisitions ahead of routine maintenance, to the risk of service members and police officers? Have training standards dropped, or do supervisors simply have too much on their plate to make sure that support crews are doing their due diligence?
One thing the Soviets and guerrilla outfits have taught us again and again is that one can stretch his resources incredibly far when he places a priority on working with what he has. Maybe we would have more success against underfunded opposition, and forestall more senseless accidents, if brass were not always keeping one eye on the next model, gingerly dangling their outmoded materiel over the toilet. The relative rarity of accidents goes to show that protocol works when it’s followed.
Once said of helicopters: They have all the aerodynamic properties of a rock.