Tag: Accidents

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1 Marine dies, 3 injured in Kaneohe Bay crash, Explosion on Carrier Injures 10, and UXO Found at Fort Shafter

According to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, one marine died in yesterday’s helicopter crash in Kane’ohe Bay.   The helicopter fuel pods were also damaged and are leaking jet fuel:

Three crewmen were treated at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and then taken to the Queen’s Medical Center last night. Search and rescue crews recovered the body of the fourth Marine from the helicopter.

Two of the injured Marines were in critical condition last night and one was reported in stable condition. The body of the deceased Marine was taken to Tripler Army Medical Center. His name will be released 24 hours after next of kin are notified, Olson said.

Kim Beasley, general manager of the Clean Islands Council, said it appeared that one of two external fuel pods on the helicopter had sheared off in the crash and was leaking JP-5 or JP-8 fuel. Crews were working to remove the fuel from the detached tank, which Beasley said was about eight to 10 feet away from the wreckage on the sandbar.

“One was split and one was barely leaking,” Beasley said. “The tank holds about 700 or 800 gallons, but we don’t know how much was in it, so we’ve got to drain it all.”

Elsewhere, the Honolulu Star Advertiser reported:

A jet fighter’s engine exploded and caught fire Wednesday as it prepared to take off from an aircraft carrier off California, injuring 10 sailors, the military said.

The F/A-18C Hornet was starting a training exercise when the accident occurred about 2:50 p.m. on the flight deck of the USS John C. Stennis, according to Cmdr. Pauline Storum.

Meanwhile workers discovered an unexploded navy munition at Fort Shafter:

Construction workers repairing a retaining wall found the ordnance about 7:30 a.m., a U.S. Army Garrison press release said.

The U.S. Army Garrison-Hawaii’s Directorate of Emergency Services and the base’s police evacuated the surrounding area as a precaution.

A team from the 706th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company identified the unexploded ordnance as a World War II-era, 12-inch naval shell and took it to Schofield Barracks for disposal.

 

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Military helicopter crashes in Kane’ohe Bay

With plans to expand the aircraft stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii Kane’ohe Bay, the chances of accidents increase.  What if this crash had occurred in Kane’ohe town, Hawai’i Kai or Honolulu?  It would be like the crash in Ginowan city in Okinawa.

Hawaii News Now reports:

A CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter carrying four crew members crashed in Kaneohe Bay. The aircraft issued a mayday call shortly after it left Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

The aircraft made an emergency landing in shallow water on the Kaneohe Bay sandbar around 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday. Rescue crews picked up all four marines. Sources said three of them were taken to the Queen’s Medical Center with serious injuries. The emergency startled residents who live near the bay.

[…]

Fire officials said the chopper ended up on its side. Containment booms have been placed around the wreckage as a precaution. The Coast Guard is enforcing a temporary safety zone extending 500 yards around the aircraft.

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“When nuclear reactors blow, the first thing that melts down is the truth”; What They’re Covering Up at Fukushima

Yesterday the EPA reported its first detection in Hawai’i of radiation from the Japanese nuclear meltdown: “The isotope was “far below any level of concern for human health,” the EPA said.”

As the New York Times reported that Japanese authorities have issued a warning not to drink tap water in Tokyo due to contamination by radioactive Iodine 131, Chip Ward reminds  us in “How the “Peaceful Atom” Became a Serial Killer”, “When nuclear reactors blow, the first thing that melts down is the truth. ”

Doug Lummi published in Counterpunch this partial translation of a Japanese news media interview with Hirose Takashi, a well known Japanese nuclear expert.  The picture he paints of the nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima is much worse than the media has reported.  Similar to the arguments made by anti-DU activists in Hawai’i, reports that radiation detections being at “safe levels” are terribly misleading:

They compare it to a CT scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it.  The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping.  What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside.  These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say?  They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance.  I want to say the reverse.  Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body.  What happens?  Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter.  That’s a thousand times a thousand: a thousand squared.  That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.”  Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion.  Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

According to Mr. Takashi, the only solution is to bury the damaged nuclear plants in a solid block of cement.  But the only thing Japanese authorities seem intent on burying is the truth.

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Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html

March 22, 2011

“You Get 3,500,000 the Normal Dose. You Call That Safe? And What Media Have Reported This? None!”

What They’re Covering Up at Fukushima

By HIROSE TAKASHI

Introduced by Douglas Lummis

Okinawa

Hirose Takashi has written a whole shelf full of books, mostly on the nuclear power industry and the military-industrial complex.  Probably his best known book is  Nuclear Power Plants for Tokyo in which he took the logic of the nuke promoters to its logical conclusion: if you are so sure that they’re safe, why not build them in the center of the city, instead of hundreds of miles away where you lose half the electricity in the wires?

He did the TV interview that is partly translated below somewhat against his present impulses.  I talked to him on the telephone today (March 22 , 2011) and he told me that while it made sense to oppose nuclear power back then, now that the disaster has begun he would just as soon remain silent, but the lies they are telling on the radio and TV are so gross that he cannot remain silent.

I have translated only about the first third of the interview (you can see the whole thing in Japanese on you-tube), the part that pertains particularly to what is happening at the Fukushima plants.  In the latter part he talked about how dangerous radiation is in general, and also about the continuing danger of earthquakes.

After reading his account, you will wonder, why do they keep on sprinkling water on the reactors, rather than accept the sarcophagus solution  [ie., entombing the reactors in concrete. Editors.] I think there are a couple of answers.  One, those reactors were expensive, and they just can’t bear the idea of that huge a financial loss.  But more importantly, accepting the sarcophagus solution means admitting that they were wrong, and that they couldn’t fix the things.  On the one hand that’s too much guilt for a human being to bear.  On the other, it means the defeat of the nuclear energy idea, an idea they hold to with almost religious devotion.  And it means not just the loss of those six (or ten) reactors, it means shutting down all the others as well, a financial catastrophe.  If they can only get them cooled down and running again they can say, See, nuclear power isn’t so dangerous after all.  Fukushima is a drama with the whole world watching, that can end in the defeat or (in their frail, I think groundless, hope) victory for the nuclear industry.  Hirose’s account can help us to understand what the drama is about. Douglas Lummis

Hirose Takashi:  The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident and the State of the Media

Broadcast by Asahi NewStar, 17 March, 20:00

Interviewers: Yoh Sen’ei and Maeda Mari

Yoh: Today many people saw water being sprayed on the reactors from the air and from the ground, but is this effective?

Hirose:  . . . If you want to cool a reactor down with water, you have to circulate the water inside and carry the heat away, otherwise it has no meaning. So the only solution is to reconnect the electricity.  Otherwise it’s like pouring water on lava.

Yoh: Reconnect the electricity – that’s to restart the cooling system?

Hirose:  Yes.  The accident was caused by the fact that the tsunami flooded the emergency generators and carried away their fuel tanks.  If that isn’t fixed, there’s no way to recover from this accident.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Sailor struck and killed on H-1 freeway

Honolulu Star Advertiser reports:

Honolulu vehicular homicide investigators are looking for one vehicle — and possibly others — that hit and killed a 21-year-old Navy sailor walking on the H-1 freeway then fled the scene early this morning.

A 2007 Nissan Altima driven by a 22-year-old, Mililani man also hit the sailor but did stop and called police around 2:17 a.m., police said.

Investigators are still trying to determine why the sailor was walking in the west-bound lanes of the H-1 just before the Makakilo off-ramp. They don’t know whether drugs or alcohol were involved.

The sailor was hit by one vehicle that fled the scene and possibly by another vehicle that also fled, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

 

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Colorado chopper crash cost $25.8 million

As helicopters roar overhead en route from Pohakuloa to Wheeler, I received this article about a helicopter crash in Colorado  from Shannon Rudolph in Kona.   The Army is proposing to do High Altitude Mountainous Environment Terrain Training (HAMET) helicopter training on the slopes of Mauna Kea, which is a bad idea all around.  Mauna Kea is a sacred site to Native Hawaiians, an ecologically sensitive and protected area, and a poor location for the Army to meet its own training objectives.

The article cites an investigation of the crash that says “The investigation was also critical of the training program, designed to prepare Army pilots for Afghanistan… the program “focuses almost exclusively” on landing at high elevations even though helicopters have little need to do that in Afghanistan.”

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/colorado-helicopter-crash_n_833482.html

Colorado Helicopter Crash Cost U.S. Army $25.8 Million

By Dan Elliott, AP

DENVER — An Army helicopter that crash-landed during a high-altitude training mission in Colorado last year suffered $25.8 million in damage, officials revealed this week.

The replacement price for the AH-64D Longbow helicopter from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., is between $25 million and $30 million, the Army said. It wasn’t immediately known whether the Army would try to repair the aircraft.

The helicopter was attempting to land at about 12,200 feet above sea level June 30 when it crashed.

Two pilots were aboard. One suffered two broken legs, a broken nose and internal injuries. The other was treated and released.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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One Creature That Deserves Extinction: the V-22 Osprey

John Feffer wrote the following article about the resistance to the expansion of the U.S. base in Takae, Okinawa.  Construction has commenced with forcible removal of protesters.  When protesters took their demands to the U.S. Embassy, several were arrested and physically assaulted.   Note that one of the aircraft being protested is the V-22 Osprey, the same aircraft proposed for the Marine Corps Base Hawai’i Kaneohe Bay.

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http://www.fpif.org/blog/one_creature_that_deserves_extinction_the_v-22_osprey

One Creature That Deserves Extinction: the V-22 Osprey

By John Feffer, February 25, 2011

V22 Osprey

Some animals should be endangered. Consider the V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which takes off like a helicopter but flies like a plane, costs more than a $100 million apiece, killed 30 personnel in crashes during its development stage, and survived four attempts by none other than Dick Cheney to deep-six the program. Although it is no longer as crash-prone as it once was, the Osprey’s performance in Iraq was still sub-par and it remains a woefully expensive creature. Although canceling the program would save the U.S. government $10-12 billion over the next decade, the Osprey somehow avoided the budget axe in the latest round of cuts on Capitol Hill.

It’s bad enough that U.S. taxpayers have to continue to support the care and feeding of this particular Osprey. Worse, we’re inflicting the bird on others.

In a small village in the Yanbaru Forest in northern Okinawa, the residents of Takae have been fighting non-stop to prevent the construction of six helipads designed specifically for the V-22. The protests have been going on since the day in 2007 when Japanese construction crews tried to prepare the site for the helipads. “Since that day, over 10,000 locals, mainland Japanese, and foreign nationals have participated in a non-stop sit-in outside the planned helipad sites,” writes Jon Mitchell at Foreign Policy In Focus. “So far, they’ve managed to thwart any further construction attempts. At small marquee tents, the villagers greet visitors with cups of tea and talk them through their campaign, highlighting their message with hand-written leaflets and water-stained maps.”

Yanbaru

It’s all part of the plan that would shut down the aging Futenma air base in Okinawa, relocate some of the Marines to Guam, and build a new facility elsewhere in Okinawa. The overwhelming majority of Okinawans oppose this plan. They want to shut down Futenma, and they don’t want any new U.S. military bases.

But the Japanese government has essentially knuckled under to U.S. pressure to move forward with the agreement. Building these helipads in a subtropical forest, with a wide range of unusual wildlife, is all part of the deal.

The recently re-elected Okinawan governor Hirokazu Nakaima opposes the relocation plan. And, according to Pacific Daily News, “Nakaima may actually have the authority to disrupt the plan because of his authority under the Japan Public Water Reclamation Act, which gives the Okinawa governor final authority over reclaimed land.” Washington has said that it won’t move forward on the deal without local support.

The Osprey is a budget-busting beast. The Okinawans don’t want it. Both Tokyo and Washington are desperate to trim spending.

The V-22 is one animal well worth driving toward extinction.

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Generals clash on cause of April Osprey crash

Coming soon to Mokapu and Pohakuloa? Speak out against the Osprey invasion.   We need a predator fence against these invaders.

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http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/01/air-force-generals-clash-on-osprey-crash-012211w/

Generals clash on cause of April Osprey crash

By Bruce Rolfsen – Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 22, 2011 10:12:48 EST

In a rare public display of disunity, two generals are at serious odds over the cause of a fatal aircraft accident.

The April 9 crash in Afghanistan was the first loss of a CV-22 Osprey in combat. Two of the three cockpit crew members — pilot Maj. Randell Voas, 43, and flight engineer Senior Master Sgt. James Lackey, 45 — died attempting a night landing at a desert landing zone. The co-pilot survived; he has not been indentified. Also killed were a soldier and a contractor — two of 16 passengers in the cargo compartment.

Brig. Gen. Donald Harvel, president of the accident investigation board, said he believes engine problems brought down the special operations Osprey on its landing approach. Lt. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, to whom Harvel answered during the investigation, argues aircrew errors caused the crash.

Harvel cited engine problems in his report; Cichowski wrote a dissent that he released with the report Dec. 15.

READ FULL ARTICLE

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Remembering the Ehime Maru

Ten years ago, the USS Greeneville nuclear submarine smashed into a Japanese high school fishing training ship the Ehime Maru sending it to the bottom of the sea and killing nine passengers including four students.  The collision was a product of the rampant militarization in Hawai’i, where sub commanders give joy rides to wealthy political donors so that these civilians become advocates for maintaining levels of funding for the Cold War era sub fleet.    The highly charged political incident was smoothed over by hands at the highest levels of government in Tokyo and Washington.   A captain was rather lightly disciplined for the reckless action. Yet he claims to have been made a scapegoat.  The higher ups who arranged for these political joy rides were not brought to justice.  Nor was there significant debate about the dangers of such intensely militarized seas surrounding the Hawaiian islands.

Here’s an opinion piece I wrote about the incident in 2001.  Let us remember the nine who perished in the seas off Maunalua Bay and work to reduce the militarization of our islands to ensure that another Ehime Maru incident will never happen again.

The Honolulu Star Advertiser published a retrospective on the incident:

Ten years ago Wednesday, the USS Greeneville was impressing 16 civilian guests south of Oahu with some of the capabilities of a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine.

On the surface, there was open-air time with the Greeneville’s gregarious, cigar-smoking captain, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, as the sub powered through the waves.

Underwater there were steep ascents and descents — “angles and dangles” in Navy jargon, at one point reaching a classified depth below 800 feet — as well as high-speed turns.

And finally, there was the demonstration of an emergency main ballast tank blow, an action that forces 4,500 pounds per square inch of air into ballast tanks, causing the 6,900-ton submarine to breach the surface like a humpback whale.

On Feb. 9, 2001, the Greeneville, longer than a football field, rocketed upward from a depth of 400 feet, its crew not knowing it was on a collision course with a Japanese high school fishing training vessel, the Ehime Maru.

What came at 1:43 p.m. was unthinkable: The submarine hit the Japanese ship. The Greeneville’s steel rudder — reinforced to punch through Arctic ice — cut through the underbelly of the 190-foot Ehime Maru.

The Japanese vessel sank in five minutes nine miles south of Diamond Head. Twenty-six on board survived, but nine others — including four high school students — perished.

Never in U.S. Navy history had a collision between a nuclear submarine and a civilian vessel killed so many people.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Army helicopter makes forced landing at elementary school

Of course, they turn what could have been a dangerous accident into a photo op with kids climbing inside the helicopter and trying on flight gear.  How militarized are we?

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Source: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/Army_helicopter_lands_in_Hawaii_Kai_field.html

Army helicopter lands in Hawaii Kai field

By Gregg K. Kakesako

POSTED: 08:58 a.m. HST, Feb 07, 2011

An Army 25th Combat Aviation Brigade helicopter carrying nine Schofield Barracks soldiers and a crew of four made an emergency landing at Koko Head Elementary School this morning.

…

B.J. Weiner, Fort Shafter spokeswoman, said a “microchip malfunctioned,” triggering a warning indicator light on the helicopter’s instrument panel.

“Army regulations require the pilot to land the helicopter at the first available place,” Weiner said. “In this case it was the school’s baseball field.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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Army clarifies its helicopter training operations for Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa

The Army must have been worried by the strong outcry against its proposed helicopter training on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  They issued the following press release to “clarify” its plans.  Regardless of how the Army spins their intent, the public is clear that the HAMET is an expansion of military activity into a conservation area and a sacred site.   While the Army plans do not seek to acquire additional land, it proposes to use public lands and airspace to conduct these new helicopter training in high altitude locations on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.   With 133,000 acres of Hawaiian land already occupied by the military at Pohakuloa, the community will not tolerate any further expansion.

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http://www.hawaii247.com/2011/02/02/army-clarifies-its-helicopter-training-operations-for-mauna-kea-and-mauna-loa/

Army clarifies its helicopter training operations for Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa

Posted on 10:13 am, Wednesday, February 2, 2011. 

MEDIA RELEASE

WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii – The U.S. Army‟s 25th Infantry Division Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) and U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii are reviewing the aviation training plan in response to comments, received from the Big Island community, on the proposed use of several landing zones on the slopes of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

Issues arose this past week after several stories ran in island newspapers questioning what was perceived to be the Army‟s new requirement for land expansion and possible restrictions to the residents and visitors around Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.

Public input was received during the 30-day comment period that is as part of the environmental assessment process in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969.

“The Army has no additional land expansion requirements and will impose no restrictions on anyone as a result of this revised environmental assessment,” said COL Frank W. Tate, commander of the 25th CAB. “The only land that will be impacted by the proposed Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa alternatives from this life-saving training is the pre-existing, 150 foot by 150 foot landing zones that we used from 2004 to 2007.”

The Army is taking full responsibility for what‟s being called “miscommunication” and looks forward to clearing up any confusion that it may have caused. The concern stems from specific graphics found in the environmental assessment showing large areas of the map depicting possible flight paths but labeled “project area” on the map‟s legend.

This caused significant concern of some Big Island residents, assuming the Army training would require more land.

“The graphics were not clear in what they portrayed,” said Tate. “They designate airspace, not land use, and they were designed to show that by utilizing those routes, we mitigate noise and any impact to the environment or the people on the Big Island.”

“The Aviation Brigade needs to utilize the small areas that the landing zones are on, nothing more,” said Col. Michael D. Lundy, deputy commander, 25th Infantry Division, referring to the previously mentioned 150 square foot landing zones. “We have a great partnership with the people of Hawaii and the last thing we want is to restrict them or disrupt their daily lives with our training.”

The aviation training in question is High Altitude Mountainous Environmental Training (HAMET). As part of the proposed action one of the alternatives requires that the CAB will use the same three landing zones on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa it used to train for a previous deployment to Afghanistan in 2004. The landing zones provide a realistic, rugged landscape that will match the altitudes, environmental conditions such as turbulence and wind shear that the 25th CAB pilots will face during an upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. The CAB‟s pilots will have to operate in these demanding conditions while transporting life-saving equipment and troops to the frontlines of the Global War on Terror.

Another concern raised in reaction to the proposed assessment was the massive number of helicopters that would be filling the skies over the mountains. 25th Infantry Division Officials say that‟s simply not the case. “The original document poorly portrayed what the division wanted to do, and that‟s our fault,” said Maj. Dave Eastburn, a spokesperson for the 25th Infantry Division.

“The fact is, during this training, you‟ll only see two to four helicopters in the air at any given time. Additionally, the entire Brigade can be trained over the course of three, 15 day exercises, not including holidays or weekends as to not disrupt residents or visitors to the island,” Eastburn continued.

“The Army is committed to open decision-making to build the necessary community trust that sustains the Army in the long term and the NEPA process helps to facilitate that,” said William Rogers, U.S. Army Garrison NEPA program coordinator. “We advertised the proposed action in the local news papers and mailed the documents to the local libraries and agencies for review and comment.”

“The feedback was tremendous and we are currently considering all comments received. We are in the early stage of our review process and will keep the public informed”.

The commander of the Aviation Brigade is optimistic that the changes they are implementing now will allow training to be conducted in a manner that satisfies all interested parties. “I look forward to making this training a reality once again because the bottom line is: this training will save lives,” said Tate.

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