U.S. senator wants Defense Dept. to investigate Black Hawks after fatal crash near Boise
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Jacob Scholl, Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Citing last week’s crash that claimed the lives of three Idaho National Guard pilots, a U.S. senator is calling for an investigation into the recent string of fatal crashes involving Black Hawk helicopters.
In a letter dated Friday to newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, asked the new Pentagon chief to investigate a “disturbing pattern of incidents” regarding UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Since December 2019, three fatal UH-60 Black Hawk crashes have occurred on U.S. soil.
Gillibrand not only asked Austin to investigate the crashes to “determine if they fit a larger pattern of malfunction with the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter,” but also asked for a classified briefing on the investigation results, and to find and fix any problems uncovered during the investigation.
The New York senator noted a fatal Black Hawk crash Jan. 20 in her home state. Three members of the New York National Guard died during a routine training operation when their helicopter crashed outside of Rochester.
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The third UH-60 crash was near St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Dec. 5, 2019. That crash claimed the lives of all three people on board. An investigation later revealed that an improper installation of an engine’s hydromechanical unit caused the engine to fail.
“… three crashes involving the National Guard’s use of the UH-60 in just over a year raises significant concerns about a systemic issue with the Black Hawk helicopter operation cycle,” Gillibrand wrote. “The further case of the MH-60 crash raises additional questions that we urgently need answered.”
Another fatal crash took place on Aug. 28, 2020. Two soldiers piloting an MH-60 helicopter, a variation of the Black Hawk, crashed near San Clemente Island, California and killed both men on the aircraft.
Each of the four crashes killed at least two people.
The three Idaho men killed in last week’s helicopter crash — Jesse Anderson, George “Geoff” Laubhan and Matthew Peltzer — were decorated pilots and members of the 1st Battalion, 183rd Aviation Regiment in the Idaho Guard. Each man is survived by a wife and multiple children.
As of Tuesday, the Boise and Rochester crashes were still under investigation by the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center based in Fort Rucker, Alabama.