From: The Times of Israel September 11, 2024 Two soldiers were killed and several were injured when an Israeli Air Force helicopter crashed in the southern Gaza Strip early Wednesday, in what the military described as an accident.
Both served in the IAF’s elite search and rescue Unit 669.
Black Hawk flew to Rafah to evacuate seriously wounded combat engineer; due to unknown reason, it failed to touch down correctly in IDF encampment.
According to an initial IAF probe, a UH-60 Black Hawk from the 123rd Squadron flew to Rafah with a Unit 669 medical team on Tuesday night to evacuate a combat engineer seriously wounded in fighting in the area.
During the final landing stage inside an Israeli army encampment in Rafah at around 12:30 a.m., the helicopter impacted the ground instead of touching down correctly.
According to the probe, the helicopter was not hit by enemy fire, and the crash occurred moments before it was supposed to land, meaning it did not fall from a significant height.
The helicopter was still heavily damaged in the crash, and all those aboard it were injured.
It was still unclear what led to the crash, although the IAF described it as an accident.
IAF Chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar ordered a probe to determine why the helicopter impacted the ground in the encampment instead of landing correctly.
Black Hawk helicopters, known in the IAF as the Yanshuf — Owl in Hebrew — are used for both routine transportation missions and to drop off and pick up troops during military operations.
Amid the war in Gaza, the choppers have been used for medical evacuations from inside the Strip, taking close to 2,000 wounded soldiers to hospitals in Israel.
