Word: stallions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Nimitz was back at last after a nine-month cruise, including 144 consecutive days at sea, most of them spent on patrol in the Indian Ocean. The ill-fated Sea Stallion helicopters had taken off from her flight deck on their attempt to rescue the 53 American hostages from their captors in Iran. Not since World War II had any U.S. warship been at sea so long...
...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...
...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 out of the blazing C-130 by heroic efforts...
...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...
Deployed by the Navy primarily to sweep up enemy mines and support amphibious operations, the Sea Stallion is jampacked with electronic gear. The aircraft that flew into Iran were loaded with even more equipment. An infra-red device, for example, was added to scan the territory ahead of the helicopter at night and give the pilot a TV-like picture of the approaching terrain. Even in a pitch-black night and at altitudes as low as shrub level, the pilots of the Sea Stallions would be able to see clearly where they were heading...