Investigators probe US helicopter crash

Military officials in the United States were today investigating what caused a Black Hawk helicopter carrying 13 soldiers to crash during a training mission in upstate New York.

Two soldiers were believed to have survived the crash near Fort Drum.

“I would like to extend my condolences to the families of our fallen comrades, and I want to assure you that we will fully investigate this terrible accident and do everything in our power to take care of all the families involved in this tragedy,” said Major General Franklin Hagenbeck, commander of the US army’s 10th Mountain Division.

Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty said the Black Hawk went down about three miles north-east of Wheeler-Sack Airfield. There were no indications of problems beforehand.

“The first call I got was that it was missing. It just disappeared,” Hilferty said. He said the aircraft had been flying in a formation with at least one other helicopter, perhaps two.

“The Black Hawk is a great helicopter. It is the workhorse of the army. It has a great safety record,” he said.

Search crews were delayed getting to the site by several feet of ice-covered snow in the area.

Steve Burton, a pilot with the air taxi service Adirondack Helicopters, 60 miles south of Fort Drum, said there was nothing troubling about yesterday’s weather.

“Visibility is good,” he said. “There was some wind but nothing we’re not used to coping with this time of year.”

Fort Drum, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario about 70 miles north-east of Syracuse, is home to the 10th Mountain Division and has been a major staging area for reserve units taking part in the build-up towards war with Iraq.

But the training mission had no connection with ongoing war exercises at the base, Hilferty said.

Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters are widely used transport aircraft. They are equipped with advanced avionics and electronics, such as GPS systems.

Last month, a Black Hawk crashed during night training in the Kuwaiti desert, killing all four crew members. The Kuwaiti military said sandstorms were reported in the area at the time it went down.

On January 30, an MH-60, an adapted version of the Black Hawk, crashed during training near Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, killing four members of an elite aviation regiment.