Maryland National Guard Recovers Navy Helicopter
Channel: Maryland Guard
Date: 03/06/2013

The Maryland Army National Guard and the U.S. Navy worked together in a unique and joint recovery mission yesterday.

Citizen Soldiers from the Maryland Army National Guard's 29th Combat Aviation Brigade and the Operational Support Airlift command assisted the Navy in recovering a downed MH-60-S Nighthawk helicopter that crashed in West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest in February.

From their staging location at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, W. Va., Maryland Guard aviators flew three UH-60 Blackhawks along with a CH-47 Chinook out to the crash site to move crew members and physically lift the main body of the damaged aircraft.

"Everything's by the numbers, safety first and rulebooks count," said Chief Warrant Officer Eric Thompson, the pilot who flew the CH-47. "We're very happy to be able to help."

This is not the Maryland Guard aviation units' first recovery mission, said Thompson. During their deployment in Afghanistan, they performed similar sling-load missions several times.

The Maryland Guard removed the helicopter from the crash site without incident, where crews of Navy maintainers were waiting to load it onto a low-bed truck for transportation back to Norfolk, Va.

"It's certainly been a great evolution [of a mission], there hasn't been a lot we've had to arrange aside from the ground transport. I've been thoroughly impressed so far," said Lt. Cmdr. Ted Johnson, safety officer for Sea Combat Squadron 26 based at Naval Station Norfolk.

The helicopter crashed Feb. 18 shortly after 1 p.m. on the side of a mountain in West Virginia in more than four feet of snow. All 17 personnel on board that day were successfully rescued from the aircraft.