Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter News from Germany.

Boeing Chinook News from Germany

Germany Gets F Model helicopters

Spring 2011: "Big Windy" - a United States Army Chinook helicopter unit based in Germany - will soon receive brand new CH-47F Chinook helicopters. Floating up the Rhein River near Nijmegen on a barge are six of these advanced and versatile flying machines. Click-N-Go Here to view a larger vesion of this image.

Big Windy D Models Return to Germany

2004: The CH-47D Chinook helicopter fleet belonging to Big Windy - home based in Germany - returns from Iraq after participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The aircraft were transported by the Netherland's flagged Inland Cargo Vessel "VERA" and "RORO1" (non powered barge) up the Rhine River to the Theater Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM) facility located at Mannheim Germany. Click-N-Go Here to view a larger image.

Hookers Upset Sunbathers in Italy

ROME, Italy, 15 August 2002 - The United States and Italy launched a joint inquiry on Wednesday into why U.S. military helicopters flew at low altitude over a packed beach, panicking vacationers and leaving five people injured.

The rotating blades of the three helicopters whipped up ferocious whirlwinds as the pilots skimmed along Italy's southeastern coast on Tuesday, yanking up umbrellas and scattering beach chairs in their wake.

Italian media have reported that the two large Chinooks and one Blackhawk helicopter swooped down on the beach only so the crews could wave to the local beauties sunbathing.

The U.S. embassy in Italy said in a statement that the military helicopters had "caused disruption and injuries to people on the beach."

"U.S. officials, in close cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Defense, have begun an inquiry and will be sending a joint fact-finding team to fully investigate the incident, " the statement said.

It added that Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino called U.S. ambassador Mel Sembler to discuss the affair. "Ambassador Sembler expressed his sincere regret over the incident," it said.

U.S. officials said the helicopters were on a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) authorized mission from Germany enroute to the Balkans, to support the NATO peacekeeping mission in the region.

Witnesses said the helicopters appeared to slow down as they approached the beach and then waved to the tourists as they clattered overhead, Italian media reported.

The five who were injured were slightly hurt by flying beach furniture.

Witnesses reported seeing the helicopters do the same thing 10 km (six miles) north of the affected beach and then once again further south. No damage was reported at those locations.

The United States has apologized to Italy, following the incident, which triggered memories of the U.S. Marine jet that sliced a ski gondola's cables, killing 20 people in 1998 on an Italian mountainside.

Italian newspapers reported on Thursday that U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler, after being contacted by the Italian defense minister, issued an apology Wednesday and asked U.S. military authorities to investigate the incident on a crowded beach in Barletta, on Italy's southeastern coast.

Corriere della Sera [an Italian newspaper published daily in Milan] said that the U.S. Army helicopters, a pair of CH-47 Chinooks and a Blackhawk, were on a peacekeeping mission that began in Germany, and after two stops in Italy, including one at Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, and in Bari, near Barletta, took them to Kosovo across the Adriatic.

Evoking bad memories of the tragedy at the Mount Cermis ski resort, the beach incident hit Italians hard.

"Maybe, after six hours of flight from Germany toward Bari, swooping low over the beach at Barletta, greeting from above the girls in bikinis, like in old action movies, seemed like fun to the American soldiers," began Corriere della Sera's account of the ambassador's apology.

"But in a country still marked by the tragedy of Cermis, even a summer stunt by a squadron in transit risks transforming itself into an international incident," the Milan daily said.

In the ski gondola tragedy, 20 people plunged to their deaths after the Marine jet, on a training missing from Aviano, flew so low it sliced the gondola's cables on Mount Cermis. Both Italian and American investigators concluded that the EA-6B Prowler jet was flying too low and too fast.

A Chinook hovers nearby preparing to lift another Chinook.

Coleman Barracks, Mannheim, Germany, August 25, 1981: An Army CH-47C Chinook helicopter belonging to the 295th Aviation Company (ASH) - "Cyclones", stationed at Coleman Barracks in Mannheim, Germany, lifts another Chinook belonging to the 205th Aviation Company (ASH) - "Geronimos", from Finthen Army Air Field. The copters were on their way from Mannheim to Ramstein Air Base, where the stripped-down craft from Finthen was to be loaded aboard a C-5 Galaxy for a flight to the United States for rebuild. Before the flight, the 205th's craft was reduced from its normal empty weight of 21,000 pounds to 11,000 by removing its forward and aft transmissions, aft pylon, rotors and engines.

One Chinook slinging another in Germany, 1981.

Operation Northern Leap

A Chinook transporting a Lance missile via sling load.

Heidelberg, Germany, 20 August 1979: After a two-week, 4,560-mile journey with three other Chinook CH-47 helicopters from Fort Carson, Colorado, to Heidelberg, one of the choppers lifts a Lance missile and transport stand over the autobahn and the Neckar River in a show of deployment capability. The four Chinooks (tail numbers unknown) flew over the open water of the Atlantic Ocean along a route that took them across Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland and Great Brittan in the first ever long range self deployment of U.S. Army helicopters.

A 4th Aviation Company, 15th Aviation Group (Combat) news article.

Click-N-Go Here for a larger image.

Read some news about the Italian Chinooks

Read about the Iranian Chinooks made in Italy

Comments or Questions ?

Email the Webmaster.