Coast Guard helicopter crashes on a training mission in Alaska and four crew members are injured
Four crew members sustained minor injuries Monday when a Coast Guard helicopter crashed during a routine training flight in southeast Alaska, officials said.
The MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed several miles outside Sitka in a sparsely populated area near Harbor Mountain. The coastal town sits on Baranof Island. The surrounding Pacific Ocean currents limit extreme temperatures but deliver roughly 100 inches (254 centimeters) of rain every year.
Rescuers arrived around 11 a.m., about an hour after the crash, and took all four crew members to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, a statement from the Coast Guard said.
“We are incredibly relieved our crew members survived with only minor injuries,” Rear Adm. Bob Little, commander of the Coast Guard’s Arctic District, said in a statement.
The Coast Guard will investigate the crash. It's not clear what caused it.
This helicopter crash followed a string of three major plane crashes this month.
A business jet crashed on a highway in Laredo, Texas, Tuesday night, killing one person on board. A B-52 crashed on June 15 during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California and killed all eight people aboard. And on June 14, 12 people were killed when a plane on a skydiving outing in Missouri crashed.
___
Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer contributed to this report from Juneau, Alaska.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
