NFR, Rescue on Mt. Hood

[Artwo]

Since we have some firefighters on this board I wanted to post this.

Apparently there were some members of TVFR (3 fire fighters, asst. fire chief, his son and an unidentified women) as well as other climbing groups (9 total) involved in an accident while climbing Mt. Hood this morning by falling into a cravas. While being resured by the air national guard rescue group one of the helecopters has crashed on the mountian. I am watching this all on KATU online, it is also on tv.

JK

It has been confirmed that all of the TVFR climbing party are alive. Although three other clinbers have died. All crew members on the helecopter are alive but one seriously injured.

[ 05-30-2002, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Artwo ]

[Beer Waggin]

info is still kind of sketchy, but check out the link below for the video.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/759138.asp

I'm no pilot, but it looks like maybe wind had something to do with it?

Very unfortunate situation.

[Artwo]

The preliminary report earlier was that the helecopter had lost power due to a change in the air pressure at that altatude.

JK

[Big Smizz]

Hey all:

My father in law is a para-rescueman with the 939th division that went up to rescue the team. The info we have is that there were 4 people on board the chopper and one on the ground. Two are seriously injured with one already being taken to OHSU. To my knowledge my father in law was not involved, but he is friends with all of those guys. Thankfully it looks like none of the PJ's (parajumpers) were killed. I will give more info as I hear about it. Keep these guys in your prayers! :depressed:

[Big Smizz]

Well, it looks like none of the PJ's died, but one had the chopper roll over on him and he is seriously injured. My father in law is headed up to the mountain as I am writing this. He is head of security for the next to nights at the crash site so no one will monkey around with the chopper remains. Lets hope everything ends up well.

[fishchaser]

Let me guess, the chopper was a BlackHawk? All the years in the service, I should have know. Those things are dangerous.

When they first fielded the Blackhawk, I was one of the units that picked them up in Germany. The pilots just hated flying them. They were known back in 1982, to fall out of the sky. The Oregon Army National Guard now has them, They put them into activity back in 1990, and the pilots STILL don't like them.

At that altitude the air is thin, and the blades have nothing to move. Which, means they don't have any pressure to stay up in the air. Gravity takes affect, and down they come. Of course I;m not saying that a Huey would have been any better.