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| Navy recovers body of missing sailor |
| 2011-01-20 |
| The U.S. Navy on Wednesday recovered the body of a female U.S. sailor who had been reported missing from the guided missile destroyer USS Halsey a day earlier, according to a Navy official. The sailor, whose name has not been made public, was spotted by a helicopter involved in the search and rescue operation, and recovered by a rescue swimmer, said Lt. Frederick Martin, spokesman for the Navy's 5th Fleet. Her body was spotted about 75 miles east of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates. The Halsey had been operating in the Gulf of Oman at the time of the sailor's disappearance. Helicopters, fighter jets and other aircraft from four ships were used during the search, according to a Navy news release. Officials began the search when the sailor failed to report for duty Tuesday. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #6 Gromky; in my 26 years on 11 different CVs, we lost several men overboard; stopped and recovered every one. One was particularly gruesome, an AB trainee stood up at the end of Catapult #1 just as an S-3 was launched. It was dark and his trainer did not notice he was gone. We stopped flight ops and the plane guard helos started searching; recovered what parts of his body were still floating and turned them over to his family. It wasn't very pretty. Another night a guy fell in and the only helo we had that was close to being 'up' that night ( don't ask but Murphy goes to sea also, and that night Mr. Goodwrench was off) had no engine fire protection system operational; my CO came in an told me to get a crew for it and he took off to recover the guy. So don't tell me the Navy doesn't try to find these folks. |
| Posted by: USN,Ret 2011-01-20 21:50 |
| #5 There are all kinds of ways you can get washed overboard or fall overboard. The problem is that if nobody sees you go, they need to backtrack along the ship's track. Of course, you will be drifting, so they need to take that into account. A helicopter is a huge help because it can search a wide area quickly, and pick you up if it finds you. I don't know what the guidelines are on how much time they spend looking for someone in peacetime. The fact that they used several aircraft, including jets, says that they spent a considerable amount of effort looking for this sailor. Things are different during an active war. There was an incident I read in Flags of our Fathers, the story of all of the flag raisers on Iwo Jima. A man fell overboard, and the ships didn't even slow down to try to pick him up. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2011-01-20 20:22 |
| #4 Hopefully not a suicide or foul play. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2011-01-20 14:35 |
| #3 From what I hear, it's not at all uncommon for the Navy to lose sailors overboard, and they don't particularly spend a lot of time looking for them. |
| Posted by: gromky 2011-01-20 10:05 |
| #2 Everybody comes home. |
| Posted by: Richard Aubrey 2011-01-20 09:58 |
| #1 I wonder how often we lose sailors to overboard/drowned? Even with all sorts of safety precautions, deck ops is a dangerous line of work. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-01-20 09:41 |