By TARA COPP | McClatchy Washington Bureau | Published: February 11, 2021 WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) Army National Guard Black Hawk helicopters will keep flying despite a string of crashes and strain on the fleet, the service told McClatchy, amid concerns from some lawmakers and defense experts that doing so could put additional lives at risk. Three crashes in just over a year, including one last week of an Army Idaho National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk “have claimed the lives of nine members of our National Guard,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a request to further investigate the causes. One of the crashes involved a New York National Guard crew, and together the accidents raise “additional questions we urgently need answered,” she said.
Soldiers really need to wear seat-belts, year-end analysis shows December 23, 2020 Troopers assigned to 2nd Cavalry Regiment convoy with their Stryker combat vehicles during training at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, in January 2016. (Sgt. William A. Tanner/Army) On-duty soldier fatalities fell 25 percent in fiscal 2020, but the number of deaths involving Army combat vehicles continued an upward trend that’s been underway for about four years, data provided to Army Times shows. When strictly the number of vehicle accidents are counted, regardless of whether there were multiple deaths or none at all, an annual assessment shared by the Army Combat Readiness Center shows that collisions and rollovers reached a five-year low in 2020.