Several sailors were injured Friday when a U.S. Navy helicopter crashed on the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea.
The Navy’s 7th Fleet said in a statement that the MH-60 Seahawk “made an emergency landing and crashed” shortly after takeoff at about 9 a.m. local time Friday while the aircraft carrier was undergoing routine operations off the Philippine coast.
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The statement did not specify how many sailors were hurt, although Task Force 70 spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matt Knight said 12 people were injured, according to military newspaper Stars and Stripes. Knight specified that four air crew members were aboard the helicopter.
Officials told Fox News that there were two pilots and two crew members aboard the helicopter. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
Families of the injured were notified, the Navy said.
The Navy said that those injured were in stable conditions and that their injuries, ranging from minor abrasions to fractures, were non-life-threatening.
The military branch also did not specify how or why the crash happened. “The cause of the mishap is under investigation,” the statement from the 7th Fleet said, adding that the USS Ronald Reagan had resumed flight operations and that it was fully capable to conduct its mission for security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.
The Navy said that some of the injured sailors would be examined and treated after the ship reaches shore, though officials did not say where it was headed. The crash occurred while Ronald Reagan Strike Group was conducting routine operations in the Philippine Sea, which spreads north and northeast of the Philippines.
“All injured personnel are in stable condition under evaluation by Ronald Reagan medical staff,” the Navy said in the statement obtained by Fox News. “While some personnel will be medically evacuated ashore, none of the injuries is life-threatening.”
Last week, USS Ronald Reagan participated in the international naval review hosted off the South Korean island of Jeju.
This is the first known crash of a Navy helicopter in the Pacific since April 2017, when a MH-60 crashed after takeoff from a destroyer near Guam. But injuries on aircraft carriers are more common; last year, two warships from the 7th fleet were involved in separate collision at sea killing 17 American sailors. And in August 2017, the USS John McCain collided with a merchant vessel near Singapore, killing 10 Navy sailors. Two months before that, seven American sailors were killed when the USS Fitzgerald struck a Philippines-flagged cargo ship off the coast of Japan.
