Copter crash kills 14 soldiers in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter crash Wednesday killed all 14 troops on board, and a powerful truck bomb in north-central Iraq killed at least 51 Iraqis.

It was a day of many reminders of all that is dysfunctional in Iraq and all that is at stake. With Baghdad suffering through its fifth summer with little more than a couple of hours of electricity each day to run fans and refrigerators, Electricity Minister Waheed Kareem said it probably will be another three or four years before power needs can be fully met.

At least half a dozen roadside bombs detonated near U.S. or Iraqi forces, including one that killed an Iraqi policeman on a platform in a traffic rotary in Tikrit and three that hit passing U.S. convoys in Baghdad. No U.S. military reports were issued on the Baghdad explosions, although witnesses said there appeared to have been casualties in at least two of the blasts.

One U.S. soldier died in western Baghdad during combat operations to clean out cells that support insurgents, the military reported. Sweeps of suspected hideouts and munitions workshops have been the focus of a troop buildup that has swelled the U.S. military presence in Iraqi to more than 160,000.

The combat death in Baghdad and the 14 fatalities aboard the crashed UH-60 Black Hawk brought to 3,722 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.

The Black Hawk went down during night maneuvers in an area of northern Iraq that Army Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman, declined to pinpoint. An investigation was ordered into the cause of the crash.

Bergner said initial indications were that a mechanical malfunction caused the crash. “There were no indications of hostile fire,” he told reporters.

Four of the 14 soldiers killed in the helicopter crash were from Fort Lewis.

A spokesman for the base south of Tacoma, David Kuhns, said the four from Fort Lewis were the crew of the UH-60 helicopter, which crashed after picking up soldiers on their way out of a nighttime operation.

The U.S. military relies heavily on helicopters, especially the workhorse Black Hawks, to move troops around Iraq because of the dangers of bombings along Iraq’s roads. The Black Hawk carries a crew of four and as many as 11 troops packed into its small fuselage.

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest U.S. aviation mishap here since a CH-53 Sea Stallion went down in a sandstorm in western Iraq on Jan. 26, 2005, killing 31.