Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Steven Williams
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Merlin Recovery Op in Afghanistan.
A CH-53E Super Stallion flies overhead carrying an AW-101 Merlin from a
forward operating base June 26. This early-morning operation to recover
the Merlin is a prime example of the joint operations now taking place
between the United States and the United Kingdom in the region. The
Super Stallion is with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, "Bigfoot,"
which is a Marine Corps helicopter squadron under 3rd Marine Aircraft
Wing (Forward) here. The Merlin belongs to the U.K.'s Joint Helicopter
Force (Afghanistan) which is also currently operating under 3rd MAW(FWD)
after the Joint Aviation Group joined the Wing June 1. The operation
was also a testament to the work these "heavy haulers," have been
performing in support of the Afghanistan national security forces and
NATO forces in southern Afghanistan as they tote heavy cargo and troops
across the area, under heavy enemy fire, on a daily basis.
Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Steven Williams
UPDATE*
A commenter has stated that this is simply the result of a hard landing. He goes on to say that this was publicized in UK papers (The Guardian). I'm checking and will also contact ThinkDefence to see if he can verify this information.
Photo by Gunnery Sgt. Steven Williams
When did this accident occur? there was nothing in the news...so the RAF merlin fleet is now down to 26 available machines? (counting the loss at El centro last year). Last thing they need really
ReplyDeletenot exactly sure. i know that the Australian Special Forces did an op where they were working with coalition aircraft and one of them crashed?????
ReplyDeletemaybe its just a hard landing? if you click on the first pick you can see that the right sponson appears to be damaged and it appears like something funky is happening around the front wheels.
but to answer your question i just don't know and Marine Corps news alerts haven't covered anything.
The Merlin looks burned or something. Windows are gone too, but those may've been removed to save weight, as was removing the engines.
ReplyDeleteBut it kinda looks like it crashed and rolled over one side. May have been set on fire by friendly troops.
Interesting.
That goes against Recovery of aircraft procedure though....in case of emergency, sensitive equipment and weapons are stripped from the aircraft....
ReplyDeletea perimeter is set up and a determination is then made to either destroy it in place or recover it.
i just can't buy that it was set on fire by friendlies. if it was then the British play book is totally different from ours.
what kills me is that we have no word of an aircraft loss...
Ron is on to something...i wonder if the release of this photo was a mistake...meaning it wasn't suppose to be cleared yet...
I think i'll try and ask thinkdefence.
Hi Solomon,
ReplyDeleteDo you have the original URL for this?
Its a very sensitive subject so am going to hang fire on posting anything but thanks for the heads up. If there are casualties then news is generally embargoed until NOK have been notified which is why I am keen to see the date on the original story.
It looks quite banged up doesn't it but could be as simple as a hard landing in brownout conditions. At nearly £30million a go its not likely to be denied unless conditions are quite severe. That said, we have denied a C130 and a pair of Chinooks in Afghanistan
the caption on the photos is correct. it was posted today.
ReplyDeletethats another thing thats unusual...their is ordinarily a 5 day delay on the posting of pics. these went right out.
I have deleted our comments on Think Defence, hope you don't mind but as I said, its a very sensitive subject and I would rather wait for any official confirmation, just in case this has slipped out despite a news embargo
ReplyDeleteyour blog...i don't care...i just want this mystery solved!
ReplyDeleteit is a mystery indeed, and a good spot, but as I said, best for me to err on the side of caution
ReplyDeleteAfter reviewing the picture and the news report pics of the el centro crash I have a sneaky suspicion that this might be from california rather than afghanistan. The hard landing accident in El Centro also involved the aircraft rolling over and destroying itself like the one here has done. No way to confirm but given the lack of news from the front right now it might be the likely explanation. Unless someone can spot something I havent.
ReplyDeletethe caption says Afghanistan.....not the US. i don't think this happened in the states.
ReplyDeleteYou all are very funny cause it did happen in Afghanistan out in a forward operating base. It was brown out conditions and it did roll over. And the Merlin crashed days before we went to pick it up trust me.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteA sarcastic air winger?!
Why am I not surprised.
We're stateside cowboy. If you're actually in the box then you know the deal on this ... stories of what actually is going on never really make it back here.....
But what has me confused is the fact of how nonchalant you are about brownout conditions. People die in crashes caused by brownouts and you're acting like ok, no big deal....
I'm beginning to wonder if you're real.
Another thing that has me confused about you air winger...is this.
That's a Class A mishap if I ever saw one. If it crashed in bad guy land then a full on TRAP team had to be assembled...that's at least a Marine Platoon providing perimeter security while the maintenance bubba's do their thing.....
Why no mention of that????
Yeah you're a winger....or a faker...either way you added nothing to this debate.
hard landing. no casualties. no trap team. he's not a faker. pics were not 'leaked out', the british gaurdian newspaper already had an article about it. british aircraft, british media.
ReplyDeleteok.
ReplyDeletei can deal with this answer. i'll look for the article in the guardian.
i know a guy in the UK and he was as puzzled as i was.
It still seems like a puzzle
ReplyDeleteI can't see the Guardian carrying a story that the other newspapers and news sources don't but that said, I cant find it on the Guardian either
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/afghanistan
http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=merlin&sitesearch-radio=guardian&go-guardian=Search
Nothing on the BBC either or any of the other news feeds I follow
The original story on the El Centro crash is here
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2009/11/10/local_news/news01.txt
and here
http://www.shephard.co.uk/news/4464/raf-merlin-damaged-in-training-exercise/
Perhaps the poster was mistaken about the Guardian
The plot thickens!!
It is ironic that Merlins are fitted with BERP IV blades that produce a doughnut shaped dust pattern
ReplyDeletehttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v613/Jackonicko/Picture2-3.png
yeah it does. the British papers were all over the non fatal crash here in the States late last year but would somehow miss this?
ReplyDeletei don't think so.
i don't know what's going on but i can smell bullshit and this reeks of it.
one other thing caught my attention. they're talking about it being a hard landing and no trap team needed.
if this happened outside the wire then that's bullshit. if it happened at an airfield then i gotta say what the fuck...
like you said...mystery deepens.
That depend on what FOB this happened at, if indeed it was a FOB. Some of them have their HLS outside the wire, some inside.
ReplyDeleteIf they have had the time to remove engines, which I assume is not something that can be done in 5 minutes, then the conditions must have been pretty benign.
Will keep my eyes open and let you know if anything pops up in the news sources over here
i've corresponded with the Public Affairs people at 1st MEF.
ReplyDeletei'll shoot them an e-mail and get the straight skinny on all this. they'll be in early on Monday after PT so the answer is just a few hours away.
brilliant, look forward to hearing the facts of the situation
ReplyDeletethe plot thickens indeed. if this was in afghanistan and has something to do with the spec-ops casualties recently that might just explain the silence on the pr front. wait and see like you see.
ReplyDeleteIt was in afganistan. Look at the tail number. It's different from the merlin that crashed in el centro
ReplyDeleteIt was afghan, it was a fob, it was somewhere between a crash and a heavy landing due to brownout! Crew and pax were all uninjured! Aircraft is cat 4'd, which means it can be rebuilt! Thanks for following with such enthusiasm. From someone in the know.
ReplyDeleteam in the no aswell. i was on it. it was a brownout and the front of the merlin hit the hesco wall and flipped over the wall. their was 3 cat c casualties on board, nothing to serious.
ReplyDeleteit cant be rebuilt its been gutted now ready to go back to the uk. but 'romeo' which crashed in el centro last year is nearly back. wetsland reckon sometime around christmas i think they said. as the fella above explans it wasn't spec ops it was a case of an overshoot landing so they decided to go around and they just lost their bearings, didn't have enough altitude to make it over the hesco wall (just) and the nose wheel snagged the wall flipping it over the top. oh and it came to rest just outside the wire. but as you can see it got lifted back to bastion where it now rests in pieces.
ReplyDeletethis picture was definately from the one in afghanistan because the one in el centro we put on the back of a low loader lorry and took it back to the camp until we could get it on a C17 home. this airframe is going to be in bastion for ages yet beause the army are in the middle of a rip where they all swap over. on so there are no spare flights. plus if you look on pprune where the original photos are you'll see a large rip down the side of the airframe where we were dragging it out in a hurry so some vital longerons and stringers were damaged so i'd be amazed if they can repair it. its a sham though cos his aircraft had seen the wars. it was the aircraft the was hit by a rocket on the pan in basra and about 2 weeks before it crashed it was hit by an RPG while landing at a fob which luckily didn't detonate, it just went in one side of the aircraft and straight out the other. the crew shat themselves though
ReplyDeletequick update, its now back in the uk.
ReplyDelete