U.S.

Marine Chopper Crashes

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 10, 2001 / 1:17 PM EDT / CBS

A Marine Corps helicopter crashed into a river during night training exercises at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, killing three crewmen and injuring two others, a base spokesman said Tuesday.

The CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter plummeted into the New River at about 11 p.m. Monday after attempting to land on a simulated deck of an amphibious ship during night training with a second helicopter, said Capt. Alan Crouch.

"All I know is that it went into the water about 500 yards offshore," Crouch said. "They were practicing nighttime operations and one landed on the deck and the other went into the water."

The pilot and co-pilot were hospitalized in stable condition, and the bodies of the three crewmen were retrieved from the helicopter, he said. The names of the deceased were being withheld pending notification of their families.

Divers were working to recover the downed helicopter, and had drained fuel and placed containment booms around the aircraft to limit environmental damage. The tail of the helicopter was visible in the river about 500 yards offshore near the Sneads Ferry base gate.

"Right now the only thing to see is a small bit of gray metal lumped on the shallow bottom of the New River," Crouch said.

"They don't know if it was mechanical or human error," 1st Lt. Clint Cascaden, spokesman for Marine Corps Air Station New River.

The CH-46, assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Camp Lejeune, is used by the Marines primarily to transport troops and supplies.

The same model helicopter crashed Dec. 9, 1999, during a training flight 15 miles off the San Diego shore, killing seven Marines from Miramar Naval Air Station.

A CH-46 helicopter was also involved in a May 1996 collision of two Marine helicopters at Camp Lejeune. Fourteen people died in the accident.

The Marines want to replace the aging, Vietnam-era, dual-rotor CH-46 helicopter with the tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey, which takes off like a helicopter and flies like an airplane.

But the $40 billion MV-22 Osprey development program has been problematic, with alleged falsification of maintenance records and two crashes last year that killed 23 Marines.