Crash Site News

Salvage crews worked to lift the first piece of Baltimore's collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the water on Saturday to allow barges and tugboats to access the disaster site, Maryland and U.S. officials said, the first step in a complex effort to reopen the city's blocked port.The steel truss bridge collapsed early on Tuesday morning, killing six road workers, when a massive container ship lost power and crashed into a support pylon. Much of the span crashed into the Patapsco River…

The U.S. Navy last week retrieved one of its crashed helicopters from 19,075 feet below the surface of the North Pacific, setting a record for the deepest aircraft recovery at sea.The helicopter, a twin engine Sikorsky Seahawk, crashed off the coast of Okinawa, Japan last year while operating from the amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19). The air crew was able to escape the MH-60S before it sank and no lives were lost in the accident.Responding to a U.S. Pacific Command Fleet request…

A U.S. Navy team has located a C-2A Greyhound aircraft that crashed in the Philippine Sea on November 22. The downed aircraft rests at a depth of about 18,500 feet, making the salvage operation the deepest recovery attempt of an aircraft to date, the Navy said, adding it will make every effort will be made to recover the aircraft and fallen Sailors, despite very challenging conditions. Eight of the 11 crew and passengers on board were recovered immediately following the crash. For the next three days, the U.S.

A search vessel contracted by the Egyptian government has recovered all mapped human remains under water at the crash site of EgyptAir flight MS804 in the Mediterranean, Egypt's aircraft accident investigation committee said on Sunday. The John Lethbridge, belonging to Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search, headed to Alexandria port to hand over the remains to coroners and prosecution officials, the committee said in a statement. It will return to the crash site to make further checks for any possible remains there, the statement said. The Airbus A320 plunged into the eastern Mediterranean en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19 and all 66 people on board were killed. The cause of the crash remains unknown. The plane is believed to have crashed in the deepest part of the Mediterranean.

Emergency crews recovered on Friday the bodies of nine people from the wreckage of a sightseeing plane that remains teetering on a steep rock face after crashing in Alaska, a rescue official said. Eight passengers and the pilot were killed when the aircraft, an excursion flight booked via a cruise ship, went down during a tour of the Misty Fjords area of southeast Alaska on Thursday afternoon, flight operator Promech Air said. A helicopter pilot spotted the wreckage against a granite rock face about 800 feet (240 meters) above Ella Lake, according to an Alaska State Trooper report. The bodies were recovered by a team of eight crew members…

A CSX Corp train hauling North Dakota crude derailed in West Virginia on Monday, setting a number of cars ablaze, destroying a house and forcing the evacuation of two towns in the second significant oil-train incident in three days. One or two of the cars plunged into the Kanawha River, said Robert Jelacic of the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. CSX said the train was hauling 109 cars from North Dakota to the coastal town of Yorktown, Virginia, where midstream firm Plains All American Pipelines runs an oil depot. It said one person was being treated for potential inhalation of fumes. No other injuries or deaths were reported. As of 9:30 p.m.

USS Sampson (DDG 102) and USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) concluded their assistance efforts January 15 after contributing more than 650 search hours to the Indonesian-led search effort for AirAsia flight QZ8501, The U.S. Navy reported. Working in coordination with the Government of Indonesia, the U.S. 7th Fleet assigned USS Sampson and USS Fort Worth to the mission shortly after the December 28 crash. USS Sampson departed from Singapore December 29 and arrived on station in the Java Sea December 30.

Indonesian search and rescue teams plan to start lifting the crashed AirAsia jet's tail off the sea bed on Friday, officials said, raising hopes that "black box" recorders can be retrieved to reveal the cause of the disaster. Scores of divers plunged into the Java Sea on Thursday to search the wreckage of Flight QZ8501, which vanished from radar screens on Dec. 28 less than half-way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors among the 162 people on board. The cause of the crash remains a mystery, with hopes centering on the so-called black boxes - the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder - providing vital clues. The plane was an Airbus A320-200, which carries the recorders near the tail section.

The U.S. Navy’s newest amphibious transport dock ship and U.S. Coast Guard medium range recovery helicopters trained together in several ship and helicopter exercises Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2014, while transiting the Gulf of Mexico. During the training, two Coast Guard MH-60T Jayhawk helicopters based out of Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile in Mobile, Ala., flew parts and supplies to the pre-commissioning unit USS Somerset, conducted more than 60 day and night-vision goggle deck landings…

The call came in two days ago: an aircraft with 40 passengers aboard had gone down in a remote area somewhere along the Alaskan-Canadian border. The Federal Aviation Administration, which had been monitoring the flight, received the distress call before losing contact with the aircraft. Just as if it had been a real-life situation, the FAA contacted the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center at Joint Base Elemendorf-Richardson. The notional scenario set the stage for more than 100 U.S.

Navy sailors and divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 2, embarked aboard the Navy's rescue and salvage ship 'USNS Grasp' (T-ARS-51), find and salvage a downed F-16 aircraft off the coast of Virginia. The downed aircraft was one of two F-16 fighter jets from the 113th Wing, D.C. Air National Guard that clipped wings mid-air during a routine training mission 35 miles southeast of Chincoteague, Va., on 1, August 2013. The other aircraft involved in the incident was able to fly back to Joint Base Andrews in Md. without further incident.

Following the discovery of a potential debris field at Amelia Earhart’s proposed crash site offshore Nikumaroro Island in the Western Pacific, Sonardyne International Ltd is now able to reveal that it’s Ranger 2 USBL tracking system together with a Lodestar GyroUSBL was the acoustic positioning technology of choice for the mission. Provided to Phoenix International, the expedition contractor, Ranger 2 was used to position both the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) and AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) used in the underwater searches. The U.S.

The Navy will christen the newest amphibious transport dock ship, 'Somerset' at HHI shipyard in Avondale, La. The ship is named in honor of the courageous passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93. Their actions prevented terrorist hijackers from reaching their destination only to have the airplane crash near Shanksville in Somerset County, Pa., Sept. 11, 2001. During the weeks following the Flight 93 crash, recovery personnel retrieved more than 95 percent of the airplane's wreckage from the crash site.

For more than 30 years, Resolve Marine Group has conducted hundreds of seafaring salvage and ship wreck removal operations. His company has responded to ship collisions, vessel fires and disabled, capsized and sunken vessels. Among Resolve's historic headline missions is the oil spill cleanup operation following BP Deep Water Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and its recovery of the aircraft and human remains at the Value Jet Flight 592 crash site in the Florida Everglades.

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Transfers TV KINGS POINTER to Texas A&M University. The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and the U.S. Department of Transportation today announced that the TV KINGS POINTER will be transferred to Texas A&M University in Galveston. The transfer facilitates the upcoming reconstruction of Mallory Pier, the Academy’s main ship docking facility. The Mallory Pier project has been in the planning stages for several years, and work is now scheduled to begin in early 2012. The project will take 12 to 18 months, during which time there will be no docking facilities available to tie up vessels as large as the TV KINGS POINTER. In addition, Academy leadership has determined that the TV KINGS POINTER no longer meets its training needs in a cost effective manner.

Five separate episodes of heroism and bravery on the high seas were recognized at the 42nd annual United Seamen's Service Admiral of the Ocean Sea (AOTOS) dinner. The AOTOS event itself honored James L. Henry, Chairman and President of the Transportation Institute; General Duncan J. McNabb, USAF, former Commander, U.S. Transportation Command; and Robert D. Somerville, Chairman of ABS (formerly the American Bureau of Shipping). The maritime industry's most prestigious awards since…

1918-There was an explosion at the T.A. Gillespie Company munitions yard in Morgan, New Jersey. Coast Guardsmen from Perth Amboy responded. When fire threatened a trainload of TNT, these men repaired the track and moved the train to safety, thus preventing further disaster. Two Coast Guardsmen were killed in this effort. 1956-Two U.S. Air Force F-89 aircraft crashed in rugged mountain terrain about four miles from Mount Olympus, Washington. For seven days, the Coast Guard directed a highly coordinated search for the lost plane and crews. Finally, aircraft and helicopters from the CG Air Station, Port Angeles, Washington, assisted by aircraft and ground search elements from other services, located and evacuated the two crew members on 5 October.

Recovery efforts began March 1 when Grasp arrived in the vicinity of the crash site to locate the wreckage, and ended March 22 when the last recoverable debris from the second aircraft was lifted onto the ship’s weather deck. Salvage operations, which could normally have been conducted within a week, were delayed by severe weather conditions that twice sent the ship back to port. The first aircraft was recovered March 12 from a depth of 177 feet and the second aircraft was recovered March 22 from a depth of 185 feet. More that half of each aircraft was salvaged including their engines, data collecting devices (flight recorders) and main computers. These items are vital to the Air Force’s investigation to determine the cause of the crash.

Oceeneering International has completed the search for and recovery of a British MOD Lynx Helicopter approximately 200 miles off the coast of Virginia. The helicopter was recovered from over 12,000 feet of water and in the Gulf Stream. John R. Kreider, senior vice president, Advanced Technologies, stated, “Oceaneering is very pleased to have located and recovered the LYNX helicopter for the Ministry of Defense. Despite the depth and high current at the crash site, Oceaneering personnel successfully completed another important deep ocean search and recovery project.”

Lack Of Boats Delays Ivorian Plane Crash Search Ivorian divers searching for wreckage of the Kenya Airways Airbus that crashed on Jan. 30 were forced to use a borrowed boat after an absence of suitable government-owned boats had delayed the search for the wreckage. A spokesman for the Ivorian military emergency services reportedly expressed frustration at the lack of available boats, stating that although there was personnel available to take part in the emergency efforts, there was no way for them to get out to the crash site.