FLYING Magazine
U.S. Navy personnel searched overnight for the missing crewmember of a Sikorsky MH-60S Seahawk helicopter that made an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday.
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said in a statement Wednesday that the helicopter, assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush, made the landing Monday morning around 3:30 a.m. EDT due to unknown circumstances. It added that there is “no indication the emergency was caused by hostile action.”
As of June, at least 43 U.S. aircraft had been damaged or destroyed in the Iran war since the military deployed assets to the Middle East in February. Some losses have been attributed to Iranian strikes, while others have been deemed accidental.
There were four crew aboard the Seahawk, and three were recovered Monday and returned to the George H.W. Bush in stable condition, per the statement. The branch said it was continuing to search for the fourth crewmember.
As of Thursday morning, the search effort was still underway, per a statement shared by an unnamed U.S. Navy official to The War Zone.
In April, military personnel undertook a dramatic, two-day operation to rescue the pilot of an F-15E Strike Eagle after it was shot down behind enemy lines. Last month, a U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz, prompting another rescue effort. Both Apache crewmembers were safely recovered.
According to Naval Air Systems Command, the Navy has 256 Seahawks in its inventory. The branch describes it as the “Navy’s premier multi-mission helicopter, serving as the carrier strike group’s shield against submarine and surface threats, while also executing critical search-and-rescue, medical-evacuation, and vertical-replenishment missions.” Replacing older H-46 Sea Knight helicopters, the MH-60S introduced a glass cockpit and reduced costs per flight hour.
The mission of the MH-60S that made the emergency landing on Wednesday is unclear. According to U.S. Central Command, several Seahawks have been deployed in and around the Strait of Hormuz and have been used to destroy Iranian boats that blocked the crucial shipping lane.
U.S. Naval Forces Central Command did not immediately respond to FLYING’s request for comment on Thursday.