U.S. Coast Guard SAR Helicopter Crashes Near Sitka, Alaska
The U.S. Coast Guard reports that a rescue helicopter went down just outside of Sitka, Alaska on Monday morning.
At about 1007 hours on Monday, the command center for Coast Guard Arctic District received report of a crash involving a Jayhawk aircrew operating out of Air Station Sitka. The aircraft had crashed during a training flight near Harbor Mountain, about two miles northeast of Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
Sitka Fire and Rescue reached the site within about 50 minutes, and its responders retrieved all four aircrew members. All were transported to Edgecumbe Medical Center for evaluation and treatment. Luckily, no fatalities were reported.
"We’re a close Coast Guard family, so it’s great to hear there have been no deaths," said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Pam Manns, speaking to ADN.
The Coast Guard said that the cause of the crash is under investigation.
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The MH-60 Jayhawk is a medium-range SAR helicopter derived from the U.S. Army's Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk. It has been in service since 1991, and Monday's casualty is the fifth recorded crash. The Coast Guard has been conducting a service life extension for its existing MH-60s, upgrading all to the new MH-60T specification, and moving to build more MH-60Ts to transition to an all-Jayhawk rotary-wing fleet. That change will phase in gradually through 2040.
The Coast Guard builds and restores its own MH-60 helicopters from used Navy hulls and new hulls from Sikorsky at an assembly hall at Coast Guard Aviation Logistics Center (ALC) in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.