Search resumes for 11 troops after helicopter crash
NAVARRE BEACH, Fla. — Efforts to locate 11 missing soldiers and Marines after a helicopter crash during a training exercise resumed Thursday morning.
Rescue personnel are poised to search as long as necessary for the service members.
The downed helicopter, a UH-60 Black Hawk assigned to the Army National Guard, Hammond, La., was reported missing at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. More than 100 federal, state and local search and rescue personnel converged on the crash site Wednesday to search for the aircraft's passengers, a four-person aircrew from the National Guard and seven Marines assigned to Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Eglin Air Force Base spokesman Mike Spaits confirmed Wednesday that human remains and aircraft debris had washed ashore east of Navarre Bridge. Spaits said the Black Hawk was thought to have crashed somewhere within a 13-mile stretch of Santa Rosa Island that Eglin utilizes for training.
"We have some casualties, and search and rescue is still going on," Spaits said.
The search continued into the evening. No official count of the deceased was released Wednesday, and the names of the aircrew and Marines on board were withheld pending notification of their next of kin.
Officials were expected to provide an update on search-and-rescue efforts Thursday morning.
Wednesday evening, several hundred people from the Navarre community gathered at the Navarre Beach Pier for prayer and a moment of silence to honor not only those on the helicopter, but also their families and loved ones.
"We come to cry with those who are crying tonight...," Momentum Church Pastor Tim Payne prayed during the vigil. "And to realize a great sacrifice, a great loss."
Heavy fog hampered rescue operations for much of the day, and limited visibility prevented air assets from being deployed until early afternoon. In the interim, search teams from the Air Force, Coast Guard, Santa Rosa County Sheriff's office, local fire departments and numerous other agencies combed the shoreline on foot, boats and ATVs.
Despite public statements of condolence from the Pentagon, Gov. Rick Scott and government leadership, Spaits and other on-scene personnel reiterated throughout the day the operation was a search and rescue mission.
"There's always hope," Spaits said. "There's always hope."
Military officials said the cause of the crash remains under investigation.
Maj. Gen. Glenn Curtis, adjutant general for the Louisiana National Guard, did not rule out weather as a cause of the crash, but emphasized the crew's experience in handling the spectrum of weather patterns. Pilot training in the Black Hawk requires flying into an actual or simulated fog bank and using the aircraft's controls to navigate safely out, he said,
"I'm not a pilot so I'll speak from a novice standpoint, but (the guardsmen) are very cognizant of weather conditions before they depart on a mission," he said. "But you can depart from one station and hit weather you didn't expect."
A second Black Hawk that was participating in Tuesday night's mission had taken off from Eglin, but quickly returned to base due to weather concerns, he said.
Families and next-of-kin of the four guardsmen had been notified of the crash by 7 a.m. Wednesday, Curtis said, even though emergency personnel continued to treat the situation as a search-and-rescue.
A spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, Capt. Barry Morris, said Corps officials were in the process of notifying the next-of-kin of the seven MARSOC troops who were aboard the helicopter.
Routine training
The downed UH-60 was one of two helicopters participating in a "routine training mission" Tuesday night despite dense fog.
The two Black Hawks had been allocated to the 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion (La.) and were crewed by decorated Louisiana National Guard veterans of combat and hurricane rescue missions.
"This is a very experienced unit with numerous accolades. They have been to Iraq twice in 2004-5 and 2008-9," said Curtis, who spoke to the media on Tuesday representing the Black Hawks' unit, the 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion. He said the entire crew had several thousand hours of flying experience in the Black Hawk.
Curtis said both pilots in the downed chopper were highly qualified instructor pilots, and the entire four-man Black Hawk crew had several thousand hours of flight time in the aircraft.
The guardsmen were combat-seasoned, he said. The unit, 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion, conducted two year-long deployments to Iraq in 2004 and 2008. Members of the unit also assisted in stateside humanitarian assistance efforts in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Isaac.
Three of the four guardsmen in the downed aircraft had assisted in the Katrina recovery effort, Curtis said.
The seven Marines belonged to the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.
The MARSOC Marines and soldiers were part of an annual exercise that had begun March 8 that "included amphibious boat training and airborne insertion and extraction methods," according to a report in Marine Corps Times.
The exercise, which was set to end March 15, is currently paused.
Conditions Tuesday were bad enough the second Black Hawk turned back shortly after taking off and landed safely at a nearby airport, Spaits said.
Spaits said it is not unusual for military personnel to train in adverse conditions.
"They train as they fight," he said.
Contributing: News Journal reporter Kaycee Lagarde; Military Times