Posted on 02/08/2024 5:19:47 AM PST by V_TWIN
The five Marines who went missing while traveling aboard a helicopter from Nevada to California have been found dead, officials said Thursday morning.
The helicopter was found crashed in a mountainous area in Southern California, the Marine Corps confirmed on Thursday.
This is a developing story.
“get there-itis”
You can say one thing about FR.....theres no shortage of paranoid conspiracy theorists.......and I include myself in that group at times.....but not this time. Lol! 😁
Amen.
Semper Fi.
Still butthurt skippy?
It is right to question everything with this administration. I am not saying one way or the other, but I do have doubts about their version.
“”””I am not saying one way or the other”””””
You do keep posting it, so it is not only your belief but one you want other people to believe.
You think Americans are being killed and blown up in various ways fighting Russians in Ukraine or in Israel and the bodies and parts are being removed from the battlefield while still fresh and shipped to America or elsewhere in the world and the military then crashes an aircraft and puts the bodies in them and no one else in the military or their families notices.
This one includes a helicopter crew, which must mean their original deaths came while they were operating the same type of craft in a war zone, so that is 2 helicopters sacrificed to conceal their war deaths?
Like when everyone died of covid the last few years. Mysteriously, no one vulnernable died by flu, etc, until Dems were in charge. Ask Biden, Fauci, Collins, Birx, et al.
Train like you fight, fight like you train.
Prayers for the families.
The nearby community of Mt. Laguna sits at 6,000', and Cuyamaca Peak, the highest terrain elevation in these mountains, tops out at 6,515'.
Stating the obvious, the pilot in command would have been clear of the ground if a flight altitude of 7,000' or higher was maintained until clear of this mountain range.
That being said, if a mechanical problem developed in flight, maintaining a necessary altitude for the area terrain would likely transition into a tradeoff, sacrificing altitude to maintain control.
Empty weight: 33,226 lb (15,071 kg) Max takeoff weight: 73,500 lb (33,339 kg)
The US Navy operates routinely in this area as they task SEAL trainees with land navigation exercises and use the same type of rotary wing a/c as the USMC, so it would seem that the flight altitude vs terrain risks would be well known to aircrews in the aviation community.
Paraphrasing, aircrews refer to rotary wing a/c as a device comprised of 28,000 parts trying to tear itself apart from the moment of engine start to the moment of engine stop.
Admitting that there are lots of qualifying words in my post.
I was both a static line and freefall jumper in the US Army, and I and my teammates spent a lot of time inside rotary wing aircraft, from climbing to jump altitude to transportation from point A to point B. Personally, for me, I was relieved to jump out of the helicopter.
(UH-1, CH-53, CH-54, UH-60)
RIP
Thanks for the ping. Frustrating headlines yesterday, and much respect and shared sadness going out today to the USMC families.
Good to know you’re still a jerk
👍
Thanks for keeping up with it
Wars happen in bad weather too. They have to train in those conditions.
BTW, even training in good weather is in and of itself inherently dangerous.
AND...we don’t know the cause of the crash...best to withhold judgement.
True that! We called for an emergency medevac one night for two badly wounded Marines and it was a very dark night, in heavily forested terrain and the enemy very nearby.
The medevac bird was a Sikorsky UH-34D ("Dog") and the only open are we could find was very small and we marked the corners with flashlights, shielded from showing light to the sides by C-Ration cans.
They came on in anyway, rotor tips whacking into the tree branches around them, took our casualties, and left.
Bravest men I ever knew and peerless flyers.
Gentlemen, we have five dead American heroes.
Could we have little reverence please?
It would be greatly appreciated.
Regards, V_TWIN
Pretty good discussion here regarding Marines and helicopters and this incident:
https://www.reddit.com/r/USMC/s/gxr52WUs5y
I agree. For a helicopter flight all the way from Creech Air Force Base, north of Las Vegas, Nevada to San Diego, with a major major storm in front of them, there were a number of official places they could have set down (including the Marine Cambat Cneter at Twenty Nine Palms) and wait for the worst of the storm to pass. With the storm the issue was not the rain (visibility) as much as the air turbulence and then they also were approaching some low mountains. There was no mission critical need to not set down somewhere safe temporarily, radio in their situation and wait till the biggest part of the storm passed. Their commanders need to take issue with why the Marine team did what they did.
A post from Reddit:
<< “I wasn’t Helos but I was an F18 mech for 5 years. I can tell you for a fact that there are many many factors playing into the failure of our AC. To list a few; aging platforms, lack of parts, requirements for training hours, desire for squadrons to make the most hours so they look the best, lack of knowledge of maintainers. I was a Sgt. CDQAR/CDI/Turnqual/PC and I can tell you that at least half of my guys were incompetent in most areas of the job and I tried to train them when I could and utilize them where I know they would be successful but you can only do so much. On top of that, more than half of the marines above me were completely out of touch. I’ve personally witnessed the CANNing of 25 year old CONSUMABLE parts (O-rings, check valves, gaskets) from down aircraft to make other jets mission ready merely for training. The Wing is extremely dangerous and complacency runs rampant. I’ve seen cases in units where entire panels were left off of jets and missed by PCs the pilot, and the final checkers and the only person who noticed it was the pilots wing man while the affected jet was breaking formation DURING the flight. As with the majority of jobs in the military, the best guys tend to get out because they know their worth, and the less skilled stay in cause they’ve got nothing better going. This leads to incompetence at the leadership levels when those dudes get promoted and shit rolls down hill. Obviously this isn’t always the case but it does seem to be trending across all fields, aviation included.” >>
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