Word: rh
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Under Phase 1 of the raid, three C-130s carrying some 90 air commandos and three others transporting fuel for helicopters took off from an airfield in Egypt. Eight Sikorsky RH-53 helicopters, flying in pairs, left the nuclear carrier Nimitz in the Arabian Sea. All were to meet at "Desert One," an unimproved landing strip in the Great Salt Desert southeast of Tehran...
...landing strip. Suddenly flames illuminated the night sky, then gradually flickered out. On the powdery sands of Dasht-e-Kavir, Iran's Great Salt Desert, lay the burned-out hulk of a lumbering U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft. Nearby rested the scorched skeleton of a U.S. Navy RH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. And in the wreckage were the burned bodies of eight American military air crewmen...
...cumbersome C-130s roared in over the desert and landed on the strip marked out on the salt flats near Posht-e Badam. Meanwhile, the eight RH-53 helicopters were finding the going much more difficult. As they emerged over land from the Gulf of Oman, flying without lights in the moonlit night, two of the choppers ran into a fierce desert sandstorm. Both developed crippling problems. One could not stay aloft because of hydraulic troubles and settled down in the bleak desert. Another helicopter crew found the disabled craft, picked up its occupants and completed the five-hour...
Actually, two aircraft were ablaze. One of the helicopters had refueled on the ground from a C130. When the large plane's tank ran dry, the chopper lifted slightly to move toward another C-130 to pick up more fuel. But in doing so, the pilot turned his RH-53 too abruptly; its rotary blade ripped into the transport's fuselage. Instantly, flames roared through the two aircraft. Ammunition began exploding, striking other aircraft. Three Americans in the Hercules were killed. Five died in the Sea Stallion. Four others sustained severe burns, one of them hauled to safety...
...there were no honors last week for the grand old trooper. It was the Navy model, known as the RH-53 Sea Stallion, that malfunctioned during the rescue attempt in Iran and forced the operation to be scrubbed. The hero of so many missions suddenly became the chopper that couldn...