One person is dead and two others are injured following a military helicopter crash on a Maryland golf course Monday afternoon, according to CBS News .
Several U.S Army helicopters, a UH-60 Blackhawk, carrying three crew members, were flying over the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club in Leonardtown around 1:37 a.m., executing a routine training exercise when one of the helicopters seemed to be having issues.
Witness Bianca Melton, a Leonardtown resident, stated that one of the military helicopters “started to lower, and it started to spiral down, and it disappeared below the trees. It looked like it had flipped over, upside-down, and then we heard a big explosion sound.”
Kevin Bowen, a Breton Bay Golf and Country Club employee, said he saw the helicopter “flying kind of low” before spinning out of control.
Black Hawk military helicopter from Fort Belvoir crashes on St. Mary’s County golf course https://t.co/q1rMJEOTCY
— getliquidized (@getliquidized) April 17, 2017
Dorothy Harper lives across the street from the Breton Bay Golf and Country Club and she stated that she “was outside in my front yard when I saw the helicopter come over right across the street from my house. I saw pieces actually falling off the helicopter.”
Harper added that after the military helicopter crash in Leonardtown, she didn’t see any smoke or flames, only “pieces falling out of the sky.”
Another witness, Mike Harvey, a golf professional at Breton Bay Golf Course, who recounted the military crash stated that the “Black Hawk helicopter come over and he was kind of flying sideways, pretty low.”
“And then as we got out on the deck watching it, he got treetop level and all of a sudden we saw the tail spin up… and just spinning around and we heard him go down.”
Harvey went on to say that it is “very seldom” that they see U.S Army helicopters flying in Leonardtown, residents are supposedly acclimated to seeing “Navy and Marine Corps aircraft in the area.”
In a Facebook post, military officials wrote that the helicopter crashed onto a Leonardtown golf course after a hard landing, and added that the helicopter was the twelfth Aviation Battalion stationed at the Davison Airfield, Fort Belvoir in Virginia.
When emergency medical services arrived at the scene, two crew members—whose names have not been released—on board were transported to the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, listed in critical condition, according to officials with the Military District of Washington.
A third unidentified crew member, a U.S Army soldier, was killed in the military helicopter crash at a golf course.
Officials initially stated that there were no fatalities in the military helicopter crash, but it was later ascertained that a soldier was killed.
In a news release, Major Gen. Bradley A. Becker with the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington said, “We are deeply saddened by this loss within our community.”
“Our condolences go out to the families and friends affected by this tragedy, and our team is focused on supporting them during this difficult time.”
Military helicopter crash kills 1, injures 2 during training exercise in Maryland https://t.co/HqOJiBdhI6 pic.twitter.com/oaTHaASlxL
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) April 18, 2017
The military helicopter crash comes weeks after an aircraft crashed in a suburban community of Clinton, Maryland, but the pilot—whose name was not released—was able to eject safely.
The pilot escaped with minor injuries, and he was released from a local hospital just shortly after arrival.
No one else was injured in the Clinton aircraft crash.
The cause of the military helicopter crash in Leonardtown is unknown, but according to the U.S Army statement, the team Army Combat Readiness Center, in Fort Rucker, Alabama will be at the Leonardtown helicopter crash scene on Tuesday to investigate.
[Featured Image by mjf795/iStock]
