Posted on 05/12/2015 11:14:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
A U.S. Marine helicopter supporting earthquake relief in Nepal was declared missing Tuesday with eight people on board, a military spokesman said.
The UH-1Y Huey with two Nepalese soldiers and six U.S. Marines on board disappeared over Charikot, Nepal, at about 10 p.m. local time (12:15 p.m. ET), said U.S. Pacific Command spokesman Army Maj. Dave Eastburn.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the U.S. military is hopeful that the missing helicopter landed and is out of communication. A military official told NBC News there is "no indication that there was a crash" but "it is dark," so they could not immediately confirm that.
Charikot was one of the villages hardest hit by a 7.3-magnitude quake on Tuesday.
Prayers up and I hope they cleared that flight with China. By our never know.
prayers.
I suspect it couldn’t hold 17k+ altitude with 8 people.
The few rescues done this high never held more than 3.
Crashes are the usual result from attempting something this dangerous.
A Army helicopter unit stationed at Fort Carson, CO trained their pilots in high altitude flight ops by sending them to the civilian airport in Eagle, CO. The proximity to several mountains that exceed 14 thousand feet in the area allowed them to become familiar with flight characteristics at altitude before deploying to Afghanistan. With the draw down in Afghanistan this training, at least out of Eagle, CO seems to have ended. Question, of course, were the Marine helicopter pilots trained to fly ops at the altitudes found in Nepal?
We lost a CH-46E for that very reason. Inserting the BLT with all of our helicopters from the MEU up in the mountains and we lost one. Pilot dropped collective too much and couldn’t compensate for the drop due to the thinner air not providing as much lift. Snapped the main struts off the stub wings and the rotor blades smacked the top of the cabin and went flying. It was a hot mess...
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