SAN DIEGO — The U.S. Navy on Saturday introduced a “safety pause” for non-deployed plane after a pair of crashes in Southern California throughout the week.
The Monday pause will give Naval Air Forces, together with U.S. Marine Corps plane operations, a chance to evaluation danger administration and implement contemporary security coaching, U.S. Navy officers stated in a press release.
The week’s misplaced plane embody Wednesday’s lethal crash of a U.S. Marine Corps Osprey close to Glamis, an space in Imperial County about 150 miles east of San Diego.
Late Friday, U.S. Marine Corps officers recognized the deceased: Capt. John J. Sax, 33, of Placer, California; Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire; Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; and Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia, New Mexico.
On Saturday, baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers stated Sax was the son of group legend Steve Sax, who performed second base and later labored on the teaching employees of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Sax stated in a subsequent assertion that the son he referred to as Johnny perished throughout a coaching train.
“He was my hero and the best man I know,” Steve Sax stated. “There was no better person to defend our country.”
The reason behind that crash was underneath investigation.
The second plane was reported down Thursday about 60 miles northeast of El Centro, additionally in Imperial County.
A U.S. Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter conducting a “routine training flight” went down on a training range, authorities said. All four on board survived, and only one had to be hospitalized for an injury, which was described as non-life-threatening.
The crashes came as Commander in Chief and President Joe Biden was in Southern California for the Summit of the Americas. When the president uses the Marine One-designated helicopter for transportation, it’s usually accompanied by a version of the Osprey.
The Osprey can take off and land like a helicopter, but fly like an airplane thanks to its “tiltrotor” engines. The car was concerned in crashes that killed greater than 30 individuals earlier than it went into service in 2007.
In their statement Saturday, U.S. Navy officials explained their motivation for the safety pause: “In order to keep up the readiness of our power, we should guarantee the protection of our individuals stays one in every of our prime priorities.”
Although deployed aircraft were exempted from the pause, the U.S. Navy said those aircraft would have to undergo the same reviews “on the earliest potential alternative.”
Todd Miyazawa, Erick Mendoza, Alex Lo and Bill Feather contributed.