An MH-47E "Chinook" helicopter has crashed in Philippines

An MH-47E "Chinook" helicopter, similar to the one pictured above, has crashed in Philippines (Thursday, 21 February 2002)
A U.S. Army special forces helicopter with 10 American troops aboard crashed in the Philippines on Thursday and no survivors were found, as U.S. forces backed a thrust by Manila's military against Muslim rebels as part of Washington's war on terrorism. "A total of 10 U.S. military personnel, including eight crew members, were on board," Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman explained. The Pentagon said no hostile fire was reported when the crash occurred and that the big, twin-rotor MH-47E chopper crashed into the sea in darkness while flying from Basilan Island to Mactan Air Base. The air base at Mactan is a logistics base for the anti-terrorist training operation being conducted by U.S. forces on Basilan. Two Chinook helicopters delivered the last of 160 U.S. special forces troops to Basilan about 3 1/2 hours before the crash, Colonel Alexander Aleo, commander of the Philippine military's 103rd brigade headquarters on Basilan, explained. Davis said he did not know if the helicopter that crashed was part of that mission. "No survivors have been found," he said. "There were no reports of hostile fire." MH-47Es are upgraded versions of CH-47 "Chinook" troop carrying helicopter and are configured for night operations and other work by elite soldiers. Dozens of such troops have been sent to the Philippines to train Manila's forces. A total of 22 American troops have already died in or near Afghanistan in a four month old U.S. military thrust there - the first leg of a U.S war on terrorism sparked by the 11 September 2001 attacks on America. Few of those deaths have been in military action. The U.S. Pacific Command said the helicopter went down about 150 miles northeast of Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines at 2:30 a.m. local time on Friday, 22 February 2002 (1:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time [EST] Thursday, 21 February 2002). The MH-47E "Chinook" helicopter was flying a routine resupply mission from the island of Basilan in the southern Philippines to the tiny islet of Mactan near the city of Cebu, Davis said. It crashed in a gulf north of Basilan. The Hawaii-based command said that another "Chinook" helicopter was flying with the chopper that crashed and remained in the area to conduct a search. A U.S. Navy P-3 "Orion" aircraft and an Air Force C-130 had joined the effort. The incident occurred as a growing number of American forces were arriving in the Philippines to take part in training exercises in which Manila's military is conducting a stepped-up battle against Muslim rebels in the Asian nation. Some 6,000 Philippine troops are on the southern Philippine island of Basilan and 160 U.S. special forces will be there until June to train them. Another 500 U.S. support personnel will be in the nearby city of Zamboanga and in the central city of Cebu. Sparked by the attacks on America, the United States launched a major military effort against Taliban forces and the al Qaeda guerrilla network in Afghanistan in October. It recently began a build-up of up to 600 troops in the Philippines. U.S. special forces troops moved into the southern Philippines last month for joint exercises with the Philippine military aimed at wiping out Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, linked by Washington to fugitive Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Bin Laden is blamed by Washington for masterminding the September attacks using hijacked airliners on Washington and New York's World Trade Center that killed more than 3,000 people.