New York Times report
11 Soldiers Feared Dead in Crash of Army Helicopter at Fort Drum
n Army helicopter carrying 13 soldiers on a training mission crashed in a wooded stretch of the sprawling Fort Drum in upstate New York yesterday. Only two soldiers survived the accident, the Army said.
The Black Hawk helicopter went down on the western edge of Fort Drum, which covers 167 square miles near Lake Ontario and is 75 miles north of Syracuse. Maj. Daniel Bohr, an Army spokesman at Fort Drum, said one survivor walked away from the wreckage.
He said those aboard the helicopter — a twin-engine aircraft that can carry up to 14 passengers — were regular soldiers on active duty, not reservists. Four were from an aviation brigade that provides flight crews for missions originating at Fort Drum. The others were from an infantry brigade.
Maj. Gen. F. L. Hagenbeck, commander of Fort Drum and of the 10th Mountain Division based there, appeared at a news briefing and expressed condolences "to the families of our fallen comrades." He also said there would be an investigation of "this terrible accident."
But he did not say that the other 11 had been killed, and other officials at Fort Drum said they would not do so until relatives of all of the victims had been reached.
Major Bohr said that the helicopter was on a training mission when it disappeared about 2 p.m. He said it had taken off from Wheeler-Sack Airfield on the base. It was not clear when the copter had taken off or whether it was trying to return to Wheeler-Sack when it slammed into the woods.
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the 10th Mountain Division, said the training mission had involved three helicopters. The one that crashed was flying last in formation. But he said there was no indication that the three aircraft had been flying too close together or that one had bumped the helicopter that went down.
Major Bohr said the Army sent several other helicopters to search for the missing copter. It was found after about 90 minutes in a desolate area of scrub pine that is home to black bears and turkeys and was popular with hunters, until the Army closed it several months ago.
"We had a hard time getting to it," he said. Other officials said the wreckage was about three miles from Wheeler-Sack, near the hamlet of Philadelphia, N.Y.
Major Bohr said the two survivors had been taken to Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown, N.Y., about nine miles from Fort Drum. The hospital refused to release information on the condition of the two survivors.
Colonel Hilferty said there had been no indication of trouble. "The first call I got was that it was missing," he said. "It just disappeared."
He said the helicopter, a UH-60 Black Hawk, was on a training mission that had no connection with continuing war exercises at the base. Shortly before 2 p.m., the National Weather Service reported winds of 22 miles an hour at the Wheeler-Sack field, with gusts of up to 30 miles an hour. The skies were mostly cloudy, and the temperature was 23 degrees.
The UH-60 is the Army's principal tactical transport helicopter. The Defense Department says that the UH-60 has been a stalwart performer on air cavalry and electronic warfare missions and evacuations for more than 20 years. But Colonel Hilferty said he did not know the age of the UH-60 in the crash. UH-60's are typically equipped with advanced avionics and electronics.
Fort Drum has been a major staging area for reserve units as the Army has geared up for a possible war with Iraq. Nearly 1,000 soldiers and reservists have left in recent weeks.