Why were they astray?

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 3

Why were they astray?

A New Zealand frigate commander has been honoured for recently saving a multi-million dollar United States Navy helicopter from ditching in the mid-Paciflc, the Press Association reports.

But more than a month after the incident nobody seems to know how the big Sea King helicopter ended up at a mid-Pacific rendezvous with the ship she was meant to meet more than 1000 km away. During a joint naval exercise in the Pacific the frigate Waikato picked up a distress call and dashed through rough seas towards the helicopter. When the helicopter

made an emergency touchdown on the frigate’s heli- , id, which was never intended for such a big aircraft, it had fuel left for only 30 seconds flying.

Last week at a Navy Helicopter Association annual convention in San Diego, the Waikato’s commander, Captain lan Bradley, received a special award and a standing ovation for his action. The convention noted that an award “for a ship rescuing a helicopter” was one of the most unusual made.

When the Royal New Zealand Navy first released information on the incident two weeks after it happened in April, neither

New Zealand nor American naval sources in New Zealand were able to say how the helicopter and the ship it was meant to meet missed each other by more than 1000 km. A letter from a Waikato crewman to the “Waikato Times” in Hamilton, via London and Auckland, shed more light on the incident than official Navy channels. But how the incident occurred is still unknown.

A Royal New Zealand Navy public relations officer, Lieutenant Commander G. Power, said yesterday that he had not heard anything about the incident since it happened.