Airmen and HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopters assigned to the 33rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron at Bagram Airfield. Afghanistan, on Nov. 27 recovered the bodies of three civilians killed when their MI-8 helicopter crashed four days earlier in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Agence France Press reported Nov. 27 that the three victims were believed to be Ukrainian nationals flying a chartered mission for a company called Airfreight Gulf in support of Supreme Global Services Solutions, a Netherlands-based catering and logistics contractor supporting NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. The helicopter presumably went down due to poor weather conditions. (Includes Bagram report by Capt. David Faggard)
The U.S. supports “a stronger and more capable” European defense, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said during an Oct. 22 press conference in Brussels—but that defense should not duplicate the functions and capabilities of the NATO alliance.