Four crew members were injured Monday when a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed during a routine training flight near Sitka, Alaska. The Coast Guard confirmed that no one died in the incident, though the extent of injuries was not immediately clear.
Crash Details and Rescue Efforts
The helicopter went down several miles outside Sitka in a sparsely populated area near Harbor Mountain on Baranof Island. The coastal town experiences mild temperatures due to surrounding Pacific Ocean currents but receives about 100 inches (254 centimeters) of rain annually.
Rescuers arrived around 11 a.m., approximately one hour after the crash, and transported all four crew members to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, according to a Coast Guard statement.
Coast Guard Response
“The safety, well-being, and rescue of our crew members is our absolute, immediate priority,” the Coast Guard posted on X. The service will investigate the crash, and the cause remains unknown.
Recent Aviation Incidents
This helicopter crash follows a string of three major plane crashes this month. A business jet crashed on a highway in Laredo, Texas, Tuesday night, killing one person. A B-52 crashed on June 15 during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, killing all eight aboard. On June 14, 12 people died when a skydiving plane crashed in Missouri.
Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer contributed to this report from Juneau, Alaska.
