Editor’s Be aware: On Thursday, the Navy up to date the whole variety of helicopters that had been broken to 10.
The U.S. Navy has confirmed that not less than 9 of its helicopters had been broken in a extreme storm that hit Naval Station Norfolk‘s Chambers Discipline on July 26 in an announcement launched Wednesday.
“Identified damages to the plane span from damaged tail and rotor blades to structural dents and punctures within the airframes,” spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Rob Myers stated in an emailed assertion.
The Navy stated broken plane included MH-60S Seahawk and MH-53E Sea Dragon mine countermeasure helicopters. The service didn’t say what items the plane belonged to.
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Information from the Nationwide Climate Service present that, on the time of the storm, winds gusted to round 36 miles per hour. Nevertheless, some space residents informed native TV station WAVY-10 that they skilled winds of as much as 60 miles per hour.
Shortly after the incident, dramatic photos of flipped and severely broken helicopters confirmed up on social media. In these photos, a number of plane are seen mendacity on their sides or practically the wrong way up with clearly seen, extreme harm to their rotors.
(embed https://twitter.com/WAVY_News/standing/1552359697604399104)
Myers’ assertion famous that no sailors had been injured within the storm, however didn’t elaborate on why the plane weren’t taken inside hangars or tied all the way down to the flight deck forward of the storm.
“The Navy is constant to evaluate the complete extent of the damages to every airframe, however there aren’t any impacts to operational forces on account of this incident,” Myers stated.
The Naval Security Command has labeled the incident as a “Class A” mishap, which means that it resulted in additional than $2.5 million in damages or the whole lack of plane.
That is the second weather-related aviation mishap to hit the Navy this month. On July 8, an F/A-18 Tremendous Hornet fighter jet fell into the waters of the Mediterranean from the deck of the plane service USS Harry S. Truman “on account of sudden heavy climate.” That incident additionally stays underneath investigation, and it’s unclear whether or not tie-down procedures had been adopted.
— Konstantin Toropin may be reached at konstantin.toropin@army.com. Comply with him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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