San Diego: A US Navy aircraft during a regular flight operation, crashed this Tuesday in the waters off Southern California – reports from Military officials.
Latest update:
On Tuesday, around 4:30 pm, an MH-60S US Navy helicopter crashed 60 nautical miles from San Diego. An operation and search rescue began right after the incident – said the US Pacific Fleet in an interview.
After a while, the officials reported that the rescue team had rescued a crew member and “search efforts continue for five additional crew members.”
The incident happened when the helicopter was “conducting routine flight operations, “as per the statement of the US Navy. USS Abraham Lincoln had been aboard during the operation.
According to the Tweet that US Pacific Fleet Shared – “Search and rescue operations are ongoing with multiple Coast Guard and Navy air and surface assets,”
Since then, no other information has been shared yet. Neither did it tell how many casualties have been received to date as the reports say, “more information will be posted as it becomes available.”
However, as per the local news channels, preliminary information shows that only one crew member has been rescued, so far the rest of the five crew members are still missing.
The rescue operations continued till late night with the US Navy and Coast Guard. Moreover, according to the news reports, the Coast guard kept searching by putting one of their aircraft around 10 pm on Tuesday. It would continue the search for eight hours, reports included.
The MH-60s is an all-rounder aircraft typically used for missions like combat support, search, and rescue, humanitarian disaster solace, etc. It accommodates a crew of 4 members.
The 64 ft helicopter weighs seven tons when empty. USS Abraham Lincoln has been assigned this aircraft. The Nimitz class US Navy aircraft carrier homeported at North Island Naval air station, in Colorado.
The incident happened 12 days after Capt. Amy Bauernschmidt took charge of CVN 72 as the first woman to lead a nuclear aircraft carrier in US history.
