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News Report - 17 May 2015

KATHMANDU, Nepal, May 17, 2015 - Joint Task Force 505 officials Monday identified the six U.S. Marines who were killed along with two Nepalese soldiers when their UH-1Y Huey helicopter went down in the mountains of Nepal May 12.

The fallen Marines are:

-- Capt. Dustin R. Lukasiewicz, 29, a UH-1Y pilot with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Camp Pendleton, California, and a native of Harlan, Nebraska;

-- Capt. Christopher L. Norgren, 31, a UH-1Y pilot with HMLA-469, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Camp Pendleton, California, and a native of Sedgwick, Kansas;

-- Sgt. Ward M. Johnson, IV, 29, a UH-1Y helicopter crew chief with HMLA-469, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Camp Pendleton, California, and a native of Seminole, Florida;

-- Sgt. Eric M. Seaman, 30, a UH-1Y helicopter crew chief with HMLA-469, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Camp Pendleton, California, and a native of Riverside, California;

-- Cpl. Sara A. Medina, a combat photographer with Marine Corps Installations Pacific, Okinawa, Japan, and a native of Kane, Illinois; and

-- Lance Cpl. Jacob A. Hug, a combat videographer with Marine Corps Installations Pacific, Okinawa, Japan, and a native of Maricopa, Arizona.

Recovery Effort

Sunday at approximately 10:00 a.m. Nepal Standard Time, Nepalese soldiers and service members from Joint Task Force 505 safely recovered the fallen U.S. and Nepalese service members to the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal.

JTF 505 Commander Marine Corps Lt. Gen John E. Wissler thanked the people of Nepal and the Nepalese armed forces for their selfless dedication in the search and recovery of the fallen service members.

"I am honored to serve alongside the Nepalese soldiers and to call them my friends" he said.

"You never hesitated in the joint effort to bring our brothers home. Everyone united -- the soldiers hiking through hazardous terrain, the pilots flying in uncertain weather conditions and the Nepalese special forces standing watch over our Marines on a mountainside at night," Wissler said. "We honor our fallen comrades through our unselfish support to each other in this time of grief."

The fallen service members were "courageous, selfless individuals dedicated to the international Humanitarian Aid mission here in Nepal whose memories will live on through the lives they touched during this disaster relief operation and in their previous service to their countries," he said.

JTF 505 arrived in Nepal April 29th to conduct humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations following the April 25th magnitude 7.8 earthquake. The helicopter crashed about eight miles north Charikot, Nepal, while supporting casualty evacuations following a second earthquake of magnitude 7.3 that occurred May 12th.

Source: San Diego Channel 6 - 18 May 2015
Submitted by: Alan H Barbour, Historian, USMC Combat Helicopter Association, 20150518

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Initial Report - 14MAY2015

12 May 2015:
Marine helicopter impact with ground at 11,200 feet during rescue/resupply to Nepal village following earthquake aftershock of 7.3 magnitude, killing 100+ Nepalese.

Original earthquake on 25 April 2015 killed 8000+ Nepalese and foreign nationals.

Six Marines and two Nepalese military were lost aboard a huey UH-1Y Venom of Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469 15 miles from village of Charikot, in NE Nepal. The Marines are participating in Operation SAHAYOGI HAAT assisting villagers in Nepal with evacuation and resupply after the earthquakes and aftershocks.

Names of crew and passengers have not been released; families in US have been notified.

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469 is part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, headquartered at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar – part of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton.

Submitted by: Alan H Barbour, Research Historian, USMC Combat Helicopter Association, 20150515

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Orlando Sentinel - 15 May 2015

Wreckage from a U.S. military helicopter that carried a Marine with Central Florida ties was found Friday in Nepal.

Nepalese rescuers found three bodies near the wreckage of the helicopter that disappeared earlier this week while on a relief mission in the earthquake-hit Himalayan nation, and officials said it was unlikely there were any survivors from the crash.
Altamonte Springs family waits for word on missing Marine

Two Nepalese army soliders and six U.S. Marines were on board the chopper, including Mark Johnson IV, who went to college and earned two degrees at Seminole State College of Florida. Johnson, 29, was a crew chief in charge of maintaining the copter. His parents, Mark Johnson III and Shirley Johnson, live in Altamonte Springs.

The trip to Nepal was one of the final times Johnson expected to fly as a Marine. Johnson, who joined the Marines in 2009, was considering a security-detail job that seemed safer for a married man with two children after three deployments, his parents told the Sentinel on Thursday. Johnson's stepmother and father talked about who their son is: a boy who loved camping and surfing and being an outdoorsman in Boy Scouts. The teenager who was hardworking, juggling two jobs and staying out of trouble. Johnson and his wife, Haley, have two children and live in California. "The wreckage of the helicopter was found in pieces and there are no chances of any survivors," Nepal's Defense Secretary Iswori Poudyal said Friday. He gave no details about the nationalities of the three victims, only saying their remains were charred.

A separate team sent by the U.S. Marines also said they identified the wreckage as the missing helicopter, the UH-1 "Huey."

"The assessment of the site is ongoing and a thorough investigation will be conducted," a statement from the Marine-led joint task force said.

The wreckage was found about 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the town of Charikot, near where the aircraft had gone missing on Tuesday while delivering humanitarian aid to villages hit by two deadly earthquakes, according to the U.S. military joint task force in Okinawa, Japan.

The area is near Gothali village in the district of Dolakha, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Nepal's capital Kathmandu.

The discovery of the wreckage, first spotted by Nepalese ground troops and two army helicopters Friday, followed days of intense search involving U.S. and Nepalese aircraft and even U.S. satellites.

The U.S. relief mission was deployed soon after a magnitude-7.8 quake hit April 25, killing more than 8,200 people. It was followed by another magnitude-7.3 quake on Tuesday that killed 117 people and injured 2,800.

The helicopter had been delivering rice and tarps in Charikot, the area worst hit by Tuesday's quake. It had dropped off supplies in one location and was en route to a second site when contact was lost.

U.S. military officials said earlier this week that an Indian helicopter in the air nearby had heard radio chatter from the Huey aircraft about a possible fuel problem.

A total of 300 U.S. military personnel have been supporting the aid mission in Nepal, which includes three Hueys, four Marine MV-22B Ospreys, two KC-130 Hercules and four Air Force C-17 Globemaster heavy-lift aircraft.

The Huey helicopter that crashed was from Marine Light Attack Helicopter squadron 469 based at Camp Pendleton, California.

Source: Orlando Sentinel - 15 May 2015 - Gabrielle Russon of the Orlando Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
Submitted by: Alan H Barbour, Historian, USMC Combat Helicopter Association, 20150515

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Capt Chris Norgren, USMCR

Capt Chris Norgren, USMCR

Submitted by: Alan H Barbour, Historian, USMC Combat Helicopter Association, 20150515

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Sgt Mark Johnson, USMC

Sgt Ward Mark Johnson IV

Submitted by: Alan H Barbour, Historian, 20150515

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