HOS DOMINATOR

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Offshore ship returned to port after locating wreckage on sea bottom

The Navy is organizing a deep-water salvage operation for what is believed to be the wreckage of the helicopter that crashed and sank in the eastern Pacific on Aug 31. The salvage team of the 'HOS Dominator' has located, at a depth of 5,300 feet below the surface, what the Navy thinks is the missing MH-60S Knighthawk assigned to the “Eightballers” Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 8, near its last known location approximately 60 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego on Sep 22. With the probable location identified, the Navy has begun mobilizing units that will be used to verify the site and retrieve the helicopter. Despite SAR efforts immediately after the helicopter crashed into the sea, five crew members went down with the aircraft. The Navy later declared them deceased: Pilot Lt. Bradley A. Foster, 29, of Oakhurst, Calif.; pilot Lt. Paul R. Fridley, 28, of Annandale, Va.; Naval Air Crewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class James P. Buriak, 31, of Salem, Va.; HM2 Class Sarah F. Burns, 31, of Severna Park, Md.; and HM3 Bailey J. Tucker, 21, of St. Louis, Mo. The HSC-8 squadron is based at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, Calif. Another sailor who was in the helicopter was rescued from the ocean before the helicopter sank. Five sailors working on the carrier’s flight deck were injured in the mishap. It’s unclear what caused the helicopter to malfunction while it was operating on the flight deck of the USS 'Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72)', which was at sea training about 60 miles southwest of San Diego. The helicopter “experienced side-to-side vibrations causing main rotor to strike flight deck. and then fell over the side of the carrier. The 'HOS Dominator' returned to North Island on Sep 19 after five days searching for the downed aircraft with deep-water salvage teams with Naval Sea Systems Command’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV). The teams located what is presumed to be the MH-60S using the Shallow Water Intermediate Search System (SWISS) with its towed side scanner and the Towed Pinger Locator 25, or TPL-25. SWISS uses a towed, torpedo-shaped, side-scanning sonar that can search waters as deep as 8,000 feet. TPL-25 is a towed, fish-shaped device that passively listens for emergency relocation pingers – such as those on aircraft data flight recorders – located as deep as 20,000 feet underwater. Further investigation is needed to confirm that the wreckage is that of the MH-60S, and not some other sunken craft. If confirmed that it’s the HSC-8 helicopter, deep-salvage equipment will be on hand to retrieve the helicopter and the remains of the lost sailors and bring them back to land. There was no information on how soon that search-and-recovery mission will begin. The work – particularly at that deep, 5,300-foot depth – will require more specialized search and recovery equipment. Such equipment includes remotely operated vehicles that are more robust to bring wrecked aircraft and remains to the surface. One is CURV-21, a 6,400-pound ROV designed to meet the U.S. Navy’s deep ocean salvage requirements down to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet of seawater.

Search going on the third day

For a third day, the 'Dominator' was scanning an area of the Pacific Ocean southwest of San Diego on Sep 18, trying to locate an MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter that sank on Aug 31 during aircraft carrier operations. The ship had left the Naval Base San Diego on Sep 16 and soon began the work of finding the downed helicopter and recovering the aircraft and five missing sailors with Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8. The exact location and depth of the wreckage has not yet been determined, though we estimate that it lies between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. Aboard Dominator are Navy personnel with Naval Sea Systems Command’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving (SUPSALV) and two specialized equipment for deep-water salvage that were transported to San Diego and installed aboard the vessel for the search and salvage mission: SWISS or the Shallow Water Intermediate Search System and its towed side scanner and Towed Pinger Locator 25, or TPL-25.

Dominator en route to crashed helicopter

On Sep 15, 2021, the 'HOS Dominator' left San Diego in the frame of an undersea search and salvage operation of the US Navyto locate and recover an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter and the remains of the five crew members killed in a crash on Aug 31 near San Diego. The Navy estimated that the helicopter was on the sea floor 4,000 to 6,000 feet deep. The Navy had to scramble to bring the equipment necessary to search at such depth to San Diego from around the country. On the day of the crash the Seahawk, assigned tothe Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 8, began vibrating side-to-side upon landing on the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. The vibration led to the aircraft's rotor striking the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS 'Abraham Lincoln', which in turn caused the helicopter to crash and fall overboard into the sea. One crew member on board the helicopter was rescued from the water. Five sailors on board the 'Abraham Lincoln' were also injured. The Navy declared the five sailors dead after a three-day search. The 'HOS Dominator' was to begin on-site recovery operations with personnel from the Navy's Supervisor of Salvage and Diving, part of the service's Sea Surface Command. The recovery team is part of a Navy command that specializes in undersea recovery. The salvage crew will try to locate the wreck using a shallow-water, side-scan sonar able to reach search depths of 8,000 feet and a towed pinger locator able to find downed aircraft at depths up to 20,000 feet. While the Navy knows approximately where the helicopter went into the water about 60 nautical miles southwest of San Diego, it has not yet found the wreckage on the ocean floor. The sailors killed in the crash were: — Lt. Bradley Foster, 29, from Oakhurst, Calif. — Lt. Paul Fridley, 28, from Annadale, Va. — Naval Air Crewman 2nd Class James Buriak, 31, from Salem, Va. — Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Sarah Burns, 31, from Severna Park, Md. — Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Bailey Tucker, 21, from St. Louis, Mo.