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The last of the Marine Corps’ aging Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters will be ceremoniously retired here today with one of the big choppers flying over to the Pacific Aviation Museum-Pearl Harbor to become a museum piece, officials said.
The twin-engined helicopter first flew in 1964 and became operational in 1966, according to the Navy. In the mid-1990s the Marine Corps consolidated all its remaining Sea Stallions at Kaneohe Bay.
In 2003 there were 40 of the Vietnam-era transport choppers at the Marine Corps base. Last May there were 32. Now there are three flying in Hawaii and about 11 remaining in Afghanistan, officials said.
Sea Stallions from Hawaii also flew in Iraq, but the choppers’ more recent career record includes two fatal crashes in less than a year.
On Jan. 19 six Hawaii Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363, the Lucky Red Lions, were killed when the Sea Stallion they were in crashed in southern Afghanistan.
The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan reported no enemy activity in the area at the time, and a NATO spokesman at the time said officials were looking at a “technical fault” as the possible culprit.
One of the 88-foot-long Sea Stallions with the Lucky Red Lions also went down March 29 in Kaneohe Bay, killing 22-year-old Cpl. Jonathan D. Faircloth.
According to a Marine Corps Field Flight Performance Board, the chopper crashed as a result of a “catastrophic mechanical failure.”
Faircloth’s father, Dean, who lives in Mechanicsburg, Pa., said in January that primary and backup systems failed.
“It was a hydraulic failure,” he said. “So they don’t have control, and then you go to the other system, and that one failed.”
Marine Aircraft Group 24 will host the CH-53D “sundown” ceremony at 4 p.m. at the Pacific Aviation Museum after one of the Sea Stallions conducts a last flight from Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay.
HMH-363 is expected to return from Afghanistan in the spring. The Marines have kept about 11 of the Sea Stallions in the country, and HMH-362, the Ugly Angels, out of Kaneohe Bay, will replace them, becoming the last squadron to fly the helicopters on duty.
Two of the three choppers still in Hawaii might be sent to Afghanistan to augment the helicopters that are already there.
After HMH-362’s seven-month deployment, most of the aircraft will be transferred to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.
With the retirement of the Sea Stallions, the Marine Corps is moving forward with plans for 12 CH-53E Super Stallions — a more capable version of the older “D” model — as well as up to 24 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and 27 Huey and Cobra attack helicopters in Hawaii.
When HMH-363 returns to Hawaii, the unit will be transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, shift to the MV-22 Osprey and return to Kaneohe Bay probably in the summer of 2015, officials said.
HMH-362 will be deactivated, and HMH-463, known as Pegasus, will remain on island changing to the CH-53E Super Stallion. Four of the helicopters are here now, with the full complement of 12 expected to be in Hawaii before the end of the year, officials said.
This summer the first Huey and Cobra attack helicopters are expected to arrive at Kaneohe Bay.
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