US airmen’s lives claimed by sea

Water depth impedes recovery operation for the Seahawk helicopter that went down off the Peloponnese coast

By Miron Varouhakis - Kathimerini English Edition

It was supposed to be a routine maintenance flight.

It was early morning on March 12 and the three crew members of a Seahawk SH-60B helicopter aboard the destroyer USS Hayler were preparing for a test flight.

Aboard the helicopter were Lt. Teri Sue Fussner, 27, of Manchester, MO; Lt. Wayne Francis Roberts, 34, of Brooklyn, NY and Petty Officer Second Class Jason Edward Lawson, 21, of Smyrna, GA. All three served with Helicopter Squadron Light (HSL) 46, based out of Mayport, FL.

At 10.30 a.m., the ship lost radar contact and communications with the helicopter while on operations approximately 80 nautical miles west of Greece, near the Peloponnese in the Mediterranean.

The US Sixth Fleet command, based in Gaeta, Italy, ordered a massive search and rescue operation that included US Navy warships and aircraft from the USA, Britain and Greece. “As is normal whenever we lose an aircraft at sea, an extensive search was conducted to find the crew members and the helicopter,” Sixth Fleet spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, told Kathimerini’s English Edition. “This rescue effort included two ships, four small vessels, a P-3 Orion airplane and two C-130 airplanes and covered more than 1,000 square miles.”

The search was unsuccessful in finding and rescuing the missing airmen. The closest rescuers came to finding the wreckage was an oil slick and debris believed to be from the Seahawk. As a result, the operation was called off the next day and an immediate investigation was launched into the cause of the crash.

“Unfortunately, after more than 24 hours of looking, the search was terminated and the three crew members were declared deceased,” Balice said. “With a water temperature of 61 degrees (Fahrenheit), maximum survivability time is approximately 12 hours.” Wreckage of the helicopter that was found floating was recovered for use in the ongoing investigation.

Two days after the US Navy called off the search and rescue operation, the three crew members’ immediate families attended a memorial service in Mayport, FL., the helicopter unit’s home port to which the crew was assigned at the time of the crash.

The service was held without the actual remains of the crew, and according to the US Navy, their families may never be able to hold a proper burial for their loved ones.

According to Balice, the sea where the Seahawk is believed to have crashed is too deep for any recovery plans.

“The depth of the water at the site of the crash was nearly 10,000 ft. As a result, there are no further plans for recovery,” he said.

The Seahawk which crashed on March 12 was a twin-engine helicopter used for anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue missions, and special operations.

This was the second accident involving US Navy aircraft in Greek waters in less than a month. On March 2, an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet crashed in the Mediterranean Sea 50 nautical miles south of Crete, minutes after taking off from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy for a routine training exercise. The pilot, identified as Lt. Cmdr. Christopher M. Blaschum, 33, of Virginia Beach, was killed in the crash, while his co-pilot managed to bail out safely. Both men were assigned to Fighter Squadron 143 based at the naval air station Oceana in Virginia Beach.

The carrier had just ended a two-day port of call at the US naval base at Souda Bay in Crete before heading to the Arabian Sea through the Suez Canal to relieve the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.