SAN DIEGO— The helicopter crash that killed 13 people, including six Marines, during a humanitarian mission in Nepal last spring was “most probably” caused when the pilots decided to fly an unfamiliar route during bad weather, the Marine Corps said.
The Marine UH-IY Huey helicopter was rescuing Nepalese civilians who had been injured by the earthquake that struck their country in April. The helicopter had picked up civilians from a mountainous village north of Charikot and was en route to Kathmandu when it crashed.
“The chosen course required a brief period of unfamiliar terrain with unstable meteorological conditions,” according to a statement released by the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan. “As they attempted to maneuver out of the weather conditions, they lost visual reference with the terrain and impacted the ground.”
The crew had probably chosen the shorter route to Kathmandu “due to a real or perceived urgency in the condition of one or more of the embarked casualties,’ according to the statement.
The Marines killed were Capt. Dustin Lukasiewicz, 29, of Harlan, Neb.; Capt. Christopher Norgren, 31, of Sedgwick, Kan.; Sgt. Ward Johnson IV, 29, of Seminole, Fla.; Sgt. Eric Seaman, 30, of Riverside, Calif.; Cpl. Sara Medina, 23, of Kane, Ill.; and Lance Cpl. Jacob Hug, 22, of Maricopa, Ariz.
Also killed were two Nepalese army soldiers and five injured Nepalese civilians.
Squadron 469 was in the Philippines on a training mission when the unit and its aircraft were redirected to the relief mission in Nepal after the magnitude 7.8 quake on April 25, which killed more than 8,000 people.
A Marine investigation ruled out mechanical problems with the Huey as a cause for the crash.
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