Coast Guard helicopter crashes in southern Alaska

A Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter crashed Monday morning during a training flight in Alaska.

A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter had four people onboard when it went down near Harbor Mountain in Sitka, a town in the Alexander Archipelago in southern Alaska several dozen miles south of Juneau. The Jayhawk and its aircrew are assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.

The crash happened Monday morning at around 10:07 a.m. local time, the Coast Guard said. It took nearly an hour for rescue crews to arrive on the scene. Rescue. However, no serious injuries were reported, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard Arctic District told Task & Purpose. All four crew members were taken by Sitka Fire and Rescue teams to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka.

The cause of the crash isn’t known, and in a post on X, the Coast Guard Arctic District said that a “formal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the event.”

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The Coast Guard Arctic District covers not only Alaska but the waters around it, including the Prince William Sound and waters in the Pacific.

Given Alaska’s remote conditions, local and military aircraft are often used to provide emergency search and rescue operations. Both the Coast Guard and National Guard regularly dispatch helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to help people stranded or in crisis at sea.

In April, helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka and the National Guard conducted a mass casualty drill near the town, as part of what the Coast Guard called “a large joint exercise involving multiple government agencies and local organizations.”