Downwash from an HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue helicopter assigned to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 210th Rescue Squadron at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, caused a rock to dislodge and knock a hiker unconscious in August 2014, Pacific Air Forces investigators found. The helicopter was hovering to rescue another hiker who was already injured and stuck on a Copper Mountain ridgeline when the mishap occurred, according to an accident investigation board report released Tuesday. The rock struck the previously uninjured hiker while he watched the rescue, causing a critical head wound. The need for a quick extraction of the first injured hiker; inability to use an alternate, safer rescue site; and the then uninjured hiker’s lifting of his head to watch the rescue hoist—despite instructions to protect himself with his backpack—substantially contributed to the mishap, investigators found.
The U.S. military is maintaining a beefed-up presence in the Middle East, including fighters and air defense assets, following the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities June 22 and subsequent retaliation by the Iranians against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.
