12 February 2016

Blue Lights On The Beach

That's different...
At about 1930 hours last night I saw a Sheriff's Department truck slowly traversing the beach from West to East with its emergency lights illuminated. Ten minutes later he came back, course reversed.
Thirty minutes later a small boat came from the West, blue lights flashing.
Somethin's up... a drowning?

Then the airshow started.
A Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter flew along the beach, low and SLOW, then reversed course.
Another S.D. truck passed by on the strand, blue lights blinking.
And then "WOW... what's that noise? That sounds a lot like a BK117". No, it's an Air Force V-22 Osprey with rotors in helicopter mode, also low and slow, moving from West to East. We notice the two rotors give off a blue-green glow at the rotor tips. Do they have L.E.D.'s out there?
Soon a Robinson R44 joined the search, landing/taxi light illuminated and someone in the left front seat shining a very powerful portable searchlight at the surf.

This activity continued until just before midnight. The V-22 hovering by made me wonder if there had been some sort of military training accident.

I recorded the early news this morning to see if answers would be provided.
This is what we learned.

4 comments:

Ed Bonderenka said...

Sad.

Jess said...

A few years ago, I watched a news report about a Coast Guard helicopter looking for a lost firefighter. They found the firefighter, and I the report confirmed my brother had died.

All the technology, fine flying machines, and astute individuals depend on luck. Luck can be so unkind and remind us of our mortality.

Ingineer66 said...

Very sad indeed. Too bad the large response was only able to recover bodies.

Old NFO said...

Sad, but at least they found the bodies. It gives the families closure.