Army Copter Found in S.C.; 3 GIs Killed

[RoyGBiv]

Army Copter Found in S.C.; 3 GIs Killed
23 minutes ago

FLORENCE, S.C. - A truck driver spotted the wreckage of an Army helicopter on a river bank after it vanished during a training mission in bad weather, and searchers later recovered the bodies of the three soldiers who were aboard.

The wreckage of the UH-60 Black Hawk was found Tuesday night near a bridge off Interstate 95, about 100 miles northeast of Columbia, said Maj. Rich Patterson, a Fort Bragg spokesman at the command post here. The soldiers' bodies were recovered later.

The helicopter was reported missing Monday night during a flight from Fort Bragg, N.C., to Florence that involved training with night vision goggles.

"The unit has spoken with the families, however, we are waiting for the official casualty notification procedures before we release the names," Patterson said. He didn't have the exact time when the bodies were recovered or where they were found.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040428/ap_on_re_us/black_hawk_missing

[KoKo]

1. Bad Weather? Was there really the kind of bad weather to bring a

copter down Monday Night? I'm in NC and don't remember any really bad weather Monday night.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Weird story all around...

How did it crash by a bridge near I-95 without anyone noticing? Even if no one saw the actual crash, which I find unlikely, how did the resulting fire go unnoticed?

Just a very odd story...

[rangerfan]

6. Post crash fires are a rarity especially if

the crash was not due to enemy fire. Weather can deteriorate, fog, rain, etc while wearing the goggles and can go unnoticed until someone looks out from under the goggles and discovers the conditions. At that point the aircraft has gone inadvertent IFR and must climb out. I would guess either there was a mechanical failure causing the crash or they got in to weather and lost control. Flying a helicopter with the goggles is no easy task. I pray for the families.

[Misinformed01]

5. Monday night was when it rained hard enough

to wash the pollen off the Subie--

I got stuck in my car for 10 minutes at Harris Teeter.

[Ripley]

9. You're kidding right?

A huge cold front moved through here and up the Appalachians Sunday and Monday. We had about 2 inches of rain in a relatively short time. I'm sure the weather has not been "made up." Not everything in the news is a lie. ;-)

[Citizen Daryl]

2. Scheduled to ship off to Iraq? n/t

[SCDem]

4. Monday night there was scattered rain

but no thunder or lightning with it.

[KoKo]

7. Helicopters can't fly in heavy rain? Is that true. Would they have known

the weather report. It's only SC not the jungles of Vietnam or something. It does seem very odd. Maybe they were very inexperienced.

Troops are spread so thin that they didn't have an experienced officer with them to train them?

[Shopaholic]

8. I live near where it went down. . .

I live in Florence County--they found the helicopter right on the Florence/Dillon County line. We did have some rain Monday night and at times it was fairly heavy, but only in brief bursts. I'm still not sure why the copter was allowed to take off at all though--we'd had scattered showers throughout the day, and even a small thunderstorm around 5 p.m. with a whole wall of rain headed our way from the west at the time of the crash. They've been doing flyovers for the past couple of weeks in this area-everytime I hear them overhead I joke that it's Ashcroft coming to get me for posting on DU. Anyway, the area the Black Hawk went down in is a heavily wooded swamp. When they finally found the wreckage, the helicopter was partially submerged in the water--if there was a fire, I'm guessing it was quickly doused by the water. There aren't any houses or businesses nearby that particular stretch of highway since it is in a swamp so that explains why residents didn't hear it or see it go down but I'm still not sure why motorists on I-95 didn't see or hear anything. I know it was dark and that it was raining but those things make so much noise how could a motorist on 95 not have heard or seen something? My only explanation is that it was dark, it was raining and whoever was driving by at the time was concentrating on their driving not on the skies above. Still you think someone would have seen or heard something.