TheFront Page Section - Page A1
September 8, 1996 Clinton Choppers Crash During Florida Campaign Tour
by Staff Journalists, The Daily Republican Newspaper
WASHINGTON DESK - President Clinton was in Orlando, Florida on Friday. He was stumping for votes in his re-election bid for the presidency. He traveled to Florida by helicopter. He had just deplaned and was being driven in a motorcade to a political rally at Valencia Community College. While en route to Valencia, one of the Marine helicopters in the president's squadron burst into flames and was totally destroyed. The six persons on the chopper escaped without serious injury, the White House said. The dramatic events on Friday led to president Clinton's order for a complete top-to-bottom audit of the Marine Corps Air Wing at Quantico.
Within moments of the explosion of the president's chopper, another one in the president's squadron was forced to make an emergency crash-landing in a farmer's field after its hydraulic system failed. The 12 persons on board the second chopper were unhurt.
The president's choppers are a special Marine Air Wing squadron based at the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia.
The air crash fiasco involving the failure of two presidential choppers on Friday is just part of a sequence of air crashes involving Clinton White House aides and officials. These included Ron Brown's death and many officials in the crash of Brown's Air Force Plane.
But, the most recently reported incident was the unexplained crash of the C-30 cargo plane transporting White House secret service staff and a top-secret communications van which Clinton used on his vacation at Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Aug. 17, 1996.
Friday’s crash involved two choppers, one crash and the emergency crash-landing of another according to Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon.
The crash happened when one Sea Knight chopper flipped on the tarmac and was consumed within a couple of minutes by a fire-ball and dense black smoke seen from miles away.
The Pentagon said that there were no serious injuries and that a few minutes after the crash another chopper in Clinton's chopper squadron was forced to make an emergency landing in an Orlando farmer's field.
It is ironic that the choppers utilized by Clinton for his political campaign for re-election is the Sea Knight (CH-46E)and is widely known among Marines as the widow maker because of its characteristic double rotors driven by a single hydraulic gear box which has been known to fail.
The Department of Defense lists the Sea Knight chopper in seven fatal accidents since 1983. The most recent fatality happened recently as a Sea Knight caught fire in flight near Kuwait City. In that incident, one was killed and three crew escaped with moderate to severe injuries.
The Clinton White House uses the Sea Knight choppers to transport equipment, reporters and White House staff traveling with the president. On one occasion reported in the Daily Republican newspaper, early in Clinton's presidency, the choppers were used by the president's aides for their own golfing excursions.
On Thursday, the Sea Knight chopper was used by the Clinton White House to transport White House staff and reporters to Sunrise, Florida where Clinton staged a political rally at a retirement community.
A squadron of four to five choppers usually accompanies president Clinton. However, president Clinton usually flies in a smaller chopper. The Sea Knight(CH-46E) has been used since 1964 as the primary combat assault helicopter for the Marines. It can transport Marines ashore during an amphibious invasion, move equipment, weapons and supplies and conduct search and rescue missions.
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