Four Coast Guard crew members were injured Monday when an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crashed during a routine training flight near Sitka, Alaska, the service announced.
The helicopter went down several miles outside Sitka in a sparsely populated area near Harbor Mountain, the Coast Guard said in a statement. Sitka is a coastal town on Baranof Island in the Alexander Archipelago, where the Pacific Ocean moderates temperatures but delivers roughly 100 inches (254 centimeters) of rain annually.
Rescuers arrived at the scene around 11 a.m., about an hour after the crash, and transported all four crew members to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, according to the statement. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear, but the Coast Guard said no one died in the crash.
“The safety, well-being, and rescue of our crew members is our absolute, immediate priority,” the Coast Guard said in a post on X.
The MH-60 Jayhawk is the Coast Guard’s primary medium-range recovery helicopter, used for search and rescue, law enforcement, and maritime patrols across Alaska’s challenging terrain.
The service said it will investigate the crash. The cause remains under investigation, and no further details about the flight or the crew have been released.