I didn't say that, originally navy pilots were forced on Beckwith but he finally got rid of them and he wanted to court martial one of them for cowardice.
Everyone is mostly in agreement that the Marine pilots were the screw up that killed the mission.
People who tell you that exaggerate, and I would like you to rephrase what you said about being forced upon Beckwith, because Beckwith had no say in who was flying at all.
That was Col Sieffert, NOT Beckwith’s decision.
As for errors, only people who dont know aviation make such blanet statements. When a BIMS indicator goes off, it means helicopter fall down, go boom. End of question. The pilot who abandoned that aircraft en route did the smart thing, they also had no spare blades nor did they bring NO2 tanks with them to recharge the spar and restart, IF it would restart in unfriendly territory!
As for the one that turned back, it had a failed avionics, I forgot which system now, sort of like the power steering and attitude control, and in that sand storm that popped up they could not see very well at all. He was unaware of his attitude, pitch and yaw, 100 deg in the cockpit, most likely airsick like his co-pilot most likely was. His major flaw was that he knew his flight time to Desert One was approx 5 hours and he had already flew 5 hours or so when he turned around. Col Sieffert made some strong comments about him, he certaily make a huge mistake, but his aircraft was in failure mode, too, like 3 of the others, so even if he made it to Desert One, if Beckwith acted like he did for Bluebird 02, he would have refused to put his men on the OTHER Bluebird aircaft that turned back.
As for original Navy pilots?? Where did that come from? NO ONE wanted Navy to be the only pilots, while Col Kyle wanted AIR FORCE pilots.
You might have your story crossed due to time. Sorry to tear your head off, but I was there, too, off the coast and my squadron was flying SAR when they took off for the Nimitz.
This is my site
http://www.rescueattempt.com