Blackhawk Crash on Eglin
A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter assigned to the Louisiana National Guard at Hammond, Louisiana crashed during a training mission at an Eglin AFB range about 10 miles from my house last night. In addition to the 4 National Guard crewmembers, there were 7 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
At the time we had dense fog, the visibility wasn’t better than a block at most, and it would have been worse over Choctawhatchee Bay. They took off from the Destin airport and headed North to the Eglin Range on the other side of an arm of the Bay.
They were probably using nightvision goggles which eliminate depth perception, and the fog would have distorted things. Debris and remains have been found on a beach.
The BBC reported on the crash, but they made it sound like it occurred near Pensacola, rather than almost 50 miles away.
It is unlikely any one survived, but they are still calling it a search and rescue mission. It couldn’t really get started until this morning when the fog began to lift.
2 comments
this is all anybody has been talking about all day here. yes, it was 50 miles away, but it’s still here.
Depending on exactly where it went down, it might be in Walton county. Eglin stretches from Santa Rosa to Walton and includes a 500,000 acre national forest, so things on Eglin can easily be more than 50 miles from me. It was on the other end of Choctawhatchee Bay.
More fog tonight.