1 dead, 8 hurt in Black Hawk crash on ship - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

1 dead, 8 hurt in Black Hawk crash on ship

An Army helicopter crashed into the fast combat support ship Arctic during a joint training exercise with SEALs Thursday night off Virginia Beach, Va., killing one service member and injuring eight.

The locally based SEALs were training on fast-roping onto the Arctic from the Black Hawk helicopter in a simulated maritime interdiction when the crash occurred.

A second Army helicopter in the exercise was able to evacuate the wounded to a nearby hospital.

Neither Army nor Navy officials would identify the name or service branch of the casualty.

“I am not going to put that out right now,” said Lt. Cmdr. Phil Rosi, spokesman at Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, noting that the killed and injured were all aboard the helicopter, not the ship.

He said four of the eight were no longer under medical care, and the four who remain in the hospital do not have life-threatening injuries.

“The process of the investigation has begun, but we have not assigned an investigating officer on this yet,” because of the joint nature of the incident, he said.

SEAL units do not have their own helicopters and often fly with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Army’s sole special operations aviation unit. The 160th is an element of the Army’s Special Operations Command, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Neither Army SOC nor the regiment’s spokesman would comment about the crash.

“I cannot confirm whether or not it was our aircraft,” said Maj. Brandon Bissell, spokesman for the 160th SOAR. “We are still working through the details.”

Members of the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based regiment, which flies several types of helicopters, are known as the Night Stalkers. They gained some public notice after the October 1993 debacle in Mogadishu, Somalia, portrayed in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

Crumpled wreckage

Photos of the Arctic pierside in Norfolk show the wrecked helicopter crumpled into the superstructure of the Military Sealift Command ship, the aircraft on its side and partially covered by a tarp.

The helicopter appears to be equipped with a fixed probe for in-flight refueling. The probe juts off the side of the ship.

Some versions of the Black Hawk flown by the 160th, including the MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator, can be equipped with a refueling probe.

Navy helicopters that operate off warships with confined flight decks are not equipped with fixed refueling probes.

Although SEAL units do not have their own helicopters, the Navy’s Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 84 specializes in working with special operations forces.

Bissell said Army 160th aircrews do train in “over-water” missions such as operating with Navy ships.

“We are continuously training on different mission profiles,” he said.

This is not the first accident involving special operations forces practicing vertical ship boardings.

On Dec. 9, 1999, a Marine CH-46 got tangled in flight deck safety netting on the fleet oiler Pecos off San Diego during a vertical boarding training by a force reconnaissance unit. The helicopter flipped and fell overboard sinking quickly, killing seven aboard. Eleven survivors were quickly plucked from the water by boat-borne SEALs who were also part of the exercise.