Three crew members from an MH-60S Sea Hawk were rescued after the helicopter made an emergency water landing in the Arabian Sea early Wednesday, while a fourth crew member remained missing. U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said the three recovered crew members were in stable condition aboard George H. W. Bush, and U.S. Navy assets were still searching for the missing aircrewman.
The landing happened at about 3:30 a.m. Eastern time, which would have been about 11 a.m. local time, putting the incident in the middle of the day for the crew’s area of operations. The helicopter had been assigned to the USS George H.W. Bush, one of two aircraft carriers remaining in the Middle East, where the ship had been operating since late April.
What makes the case immediate is not only the rescue, but the fact that one member of a four-person crew was still unaccounted for as daylight grew over the search area. Navy officials said there was no indication the helicopter was shot down by hostile action. That mattered because the incident came in a region where the U.S. had recently rescinded its blockade of vessels traveling into and out of the Strait of Hormuz and where military losses have already drawn close attention.
The broader backdrop is hard to ignore. The U.S. had lost 42 fixed-wing or rotor aircraft in Operation Epic Fury as of mid-May, and an Apache helicopter was shot down by an Iranian drone in early June before its two crew members were rescued. Even so, the cause of this emergency water landing has not been explained, leaving the search for the missing aircrewman as the central unanswered question. For now, three crew members are safe aboard George H. W. Bush, and Navy assets remain in the water and air until the fourth is found.
