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CNN Sunday Morning

Helicopters are Workhorses of the U.S. Military

Aired January 20, 2002 - 09:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get some insights on this helicopter crash in northern Afghanistan. Our military analyst Major General Don Shepperd, retired of the U.S. Air Force, joins us once again from Washington. And, General Shepperd, good to have you back.

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning, Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's take a look at some animation that we put together a little while ago, and I just want -- we can remind folks about the Marine expeditionary unit, the MEU as they're called, and just exactly how they're based and how they get into a region.

They're based generally on a series of amphibious transport and aircraft carrying ships, and there's a whole fleet of helicopters that are a part of these MEUs. Among them are the ones in question, and we have a depiction here of some of these types of aircraft. Some of them attack. These are the big Sea Knights. And then, of course, there indicated a Sea Stallion.

How much experience does the Marine Corps have flying these Sea Stallions, these Super Stallions?

SHEPPERD: Oh, they got a lot of experience in this airplane, Miles. It's a venerable old warrior, been around since the late 1970s. Now this E-model that crashed, the C-53E came on board, started coming on board I believe around 1981, and it's also scheduled for what they call a SLEP or a Service Life Extension Program.

So they've got thousands of hours. It's very reliable. It operates in a very harsh environment, off these ships in the ocean, these small aircraft carriers as you put it, but it's been very, very reliable and a real workhorse.

O'BRIEN: Let's take a look at another animation, which will give you another sense of its capabilities, and one of the keys on these particular types of helicopters, and I believe this is depicted here, is the cousin, which is the (inaudible) which is the Air Force version, but very similar type of helicopters. Airborne refueling off of C-130s, that is obviously a very useful thing for the military.

SHEPPERD: It is indeed. It extends the range and flexibility. You have essentially unlimited flexibility. You can refuel as many times as you can get gas from these KC-130s. In this case, the Marines KC-130, like the one that crashed earlier this month.

But again, they can go very, very long distances. It's got about a four and a half hour range on its own, but when you put a tanker on it, it can go forever.

O'BRIEN: Now, mentioning that whole concept of going forever, and we talked about this a little bit on the last segment, the issue of how much this operations is taxing the crews and the equipment. Is that a concern based on what you're hearing from sources in the military, is it time -- you know, the Marines after all are sort of pulling back at this juncture. Is that probably appropriate given the type of mission they typically train for?

SHEPPERD: Yes, this is a standard joint military doctrine. The Marines go in and seize an objective with light forces. That's what the MEU, the Marine expeditionary unit is about. They have seven of them spread around the world, about 2,200 men in each one of these MEUs.

Now what they do is they rotate these MEUs. The 15th and 26th that have been in there now turn it over to the 101st Airborne Division that comes in for the long haul with heavier equipment and more men and equipment, if you will.

Now they go back on the ships and float around the world waiting for the next hot spot. Some of them will get some time off with their families. But this up-tempo is something we've been doing for quite a while. It's very taxing, but that's what these men train to do and what they live for.

O'BRIEN: Give us the array of possibilities as investigators try to figure out what happened to this particular helicopter.

SHEPPERD: Yes, three things likely. One, of course, is human error. Another is mechanical error. Another is, of course, enemy action. That's the three things that really can bring you down.

It's looking right now, with the rhetoric that we are hearing out of the Pentagon, is that something went wrong mechanically and forced what they call a crash landing. In other words, something went wrong and he had to land right where he was, and didn't have a big, a lot of choices about where he landed. That's most likely what happened right now.

O'BRIEN: Of course, this as you said is a three-engine helicopter. It would have to be something fairly drastic to force a crash landing, wouldn't it?

SHEPPERD: Well, it would but things can go wrong. These are enormously complicated, although reliable, machines. The loss of an engine would not likely force you down. It may most likely be something more than that.

And again, you don't know what forces you down. It could be a bullet from the ground. It could be a missile from the ground, although no indications that happened. But it's something you have to be aware of all the time and anything can go wrong at any time. You can never relax in a military operation.

O'BRIEN: And just to be clear for our viewers, this particular helicopter, its mission is not in the attack category. It transports troops, has some defensive capability, correct?

SHEPPERD: It has defensive capability, and I said earlier you could put door gunners. I'm not sure they do that on the E-version. It's a transport helicopter. I can lift its own weight. It can take, for instance, a Howitzer in, even a 26,000-pound light-armored vehicle. It can pick up an airplane. It can recover another helicopter its own weight, if you will.

So it's very, very versatile. It uses the transport to get the Marines off the ship and on shore and then support them once they're on shore.

O'BRIEN: And it's probably also worth pointing out as we look at this full screen, which has some of the statistics on this particular helicopter, I read somewhere this morning that it can, if necessary, carry up to 50 people.

SHEPPERD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: It's a big helicopter.

SHEPPERD: Yes, actually 55 Marines with their combat gear. Now, of course, it doesn't say how far they will go. Depending on the weight, it reduces the range. But you can carry 55 men or Howitzers or a light-armored vehicle and it's a very, very versatile Sikorsky, an old workhorse there.

O'BRIEN: And I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but generally speaking it's your sense that these, over the course of time, have been fairly safe aircraft?

SHEPPERD: Very reliable, but again anything mechanical can go wrong at any time. Again, you can never relax. When you do relax in a military operation, something bad's about to happen.

O'BRIEN: Major General Don Shepperd, some good words to end it with, and to remember. We appreciate your insights, as always, as our military analyst.

SHEPPERD: You bet.

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