5 US Navy sailors killed in helicopter crash on warship off San Diego
The US Navy has announced the death of five sailors, originally reported missing, days after their helicopter crashed from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego in yet unexplained circumstances.
The announcement on Saturday came after the service launched a search and rescue mission on Tuesday that included the Coast Guard, the littoral combat ship Cincinnati, and helicopters from two other squadrons, the US-based Military.com news outlet reported, noting that only one crew member was rescued shortly after the crash.
According to the report, a Navy spokesman refused to explain what caused the helicopter to “fall off” the deck of the warship and plunge into the ocean water.
Hours after the incident, it added, the Navy claimed that one of the helicopter's crew members had been rescued and that five sailors on the aircraft carrier were injured in the incident. However, no additional details on the crash or the identity of the sailors involved had been released since then.
It is not yet clear whether those reported killed on Saturday are the sailor originally declared injured or if they are additional casualties of the mishap.
The decision to conclude the search efforts came “after more than 72 hours of coordinated rescue efforts encompassing 34 search and rescue flights, over 170 hours of flight time, with 5 search helicopters and constant surface vessel search,” the Navy said in a statement.
The Coast Guard confirmed that they paused flying helicopters in support of the search and rescue efforts Thursday morning.
The crash occurred at about 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday when an MH-60S Seahawk belonging to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8 -- based at Naval Air Station North Island, California -- was carrying out “routine operations” on the warship nearly 60 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego.
The Navy also added that the identity of the five killed sailors would be released in 24 hours to allow for notification of next of kin “as a matter of respect for the families and in accordance with Navy policy.”
An investigation into what caused the crash is underway, the service noted.
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