There's no
longer any hope of locating survivors from a military helicopter crash,
Australia's defence minister says.
A significant
amount of wreckage was recovered, pointing to a "catastrophic
incident", Richard Marles told reporters on Monday.
The crash
happened during a multinational military exercise off Lindeman Island on Friday
night.
Australian
authorities have launched a full investigation.
Australia's army
chief had grounded a fleet of military helicopters after the crash, which left
four crew members missing, and now feared dead.
Lt Gen Simon
Stuart said none of the army's 45 MRH-90 Taipan helicopters - the craft
involved in the accident - would be flown again until they were found to be
safe.
Australia has
previously grounded its Taipans for safety reasons.
"We are not
flying the MRH-90 today and won't until we think it is safe to do so," Gen
Stuart told reporters in Sydney on Sunday.
Friday's crash
happened at about 22:30 local time (12:30 GMT) over the Whitsundays, a group of
islands off the coast of Queensland.
The missing
soldiers onboard the aircraft were identified by the army as Capt Danniel Lyon,
Lt Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Cpl Alexander
Naggs.
All of them
belonged to the Sixth Aviation Regiment, based in Sydney.
The helicopter
went down during drills as part of Exercise Talisman Sabre, the massive
training exercise which gathers 30,000 military personnel from Australia, the
United States, and several other nations.
Canberra had
announced before the crash that it would be replacing its ageing European-made
Taipan helicopters with US-made Black Hawks.
Officials had
complained about having to repeatedly ground the fleet for maintenance and
safety issues.
As recently as
March, the fleet was pulled from the skies after an engine failure in one of
the helicopters during a training exercise, forcing the crew to ditch into the
sea off the coast of New South Wales.
There were no
casualties in the March training exercise. The other MRH-90s were returned to
operations on 6 April with "risk mitigations".
Gen Stuart said
the current aim was to keep the Taipans in service until 2024 but "what
happens between now and then, from what we learn from this incident, is yet to
be determined".
Australian Prime
Minister Anthony Albanese described the recent crash as a stark reminder
"that there are no safe or easy days for those who serve in our country's
name".
US Defence
Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking in the northern city of Townsville, said the
US would provide any assistance it could.
By Derek Cai || BBC News, Singapore
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