A news release from III Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Okinawa, Japan stated that the chosen route, which may have been made because one or more of the injured was in need of urgent treatment, took the UH-1Y Huey helicopter for a brief period over unfamiliar terrain in unstable weather. The helicopter crashed in rugged terrain about 8 miles north of Charikot on a mission to evacuate casualties caused by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake.