Tuesday, June 08, 1999 Copyright ) Las Vegas Review-Journal

Helicopters give residents scare

Air Force officials cannot say why a night exercise would have brought four aircraft roaring over town.

By Keith Rogers Review-Journal

Air Force officials could not explain why four military helicopters on a special exercise late Sunday night at the Tonopah Test Range thundered over Goldfield, terrifying residents and sending dust flying at the town's airstrip, where one of the craft touched down.

"We don't know why they were hanging around Goldfield," said Nellis Air Force Base spokesman Mike Estrada about the mysterious flights that occurred about 9:15 and 10:15 Sunday night on the outskirts of the Tonopah Test Range.

The test range is the northern section of the 3-million-acre Nellis Air Force Range.

Residents in the Esmeralda County community of 450, which has one blinking traffic signal and is 186 miles northwest of Las Vegas, were rudely awakened by the ruckus.

"Those guys scared the hell out of this town last night," Justice of the Peace Juanita Colvin said Monday.

Another resident, Virginia Ridgway, who lives in the middle of town, one block south of U.S. Highway 95, said she thought "it was an airliner coming down.

"It was so loud. It was right over the house, and then I thought a helicopter was going to crash on the house. It sounded like something big and heavy and loud. I thought, 'Oh well, I'm 66. That's it,' " she said.

For Ridgway, being buzzed by helicopters was yet another encounter with government aircraft, from jets that seemed as if they were going to fly into her car's tailpipe as she was driving down the road to an off-course rocket that was launched from the Nevada Test Site in October 1997.

The 34-foot-long, $2 million Sandia National Laboratories experimental rocket "went right over the house," she said, before it crashed and burned on public lands about 10 miles from Goldfield.

"They should be staying the hell on the range and leaving us alone," Ridgway said. "They've got more land than they need out there. They don't need to be scaring citizens in the middle of the night."

Estrada described the craft involved in Sunday night's incident as dual-rotor CH-47 Chinook cargo-transport helicopters. He said they were probably Army or Marine craft connected to the Air Force Special Operation Command, a multi-service organization based in Hurlburt, Fla. "They could have been from anywhere," he said.

He said that Tonopah Test Range officials "knew helicopters were coming to take part in a special exercise."

Asked if the helicopters were off course, he said: "It's extremely unlikely because of the modern navigation systems on board. Until we know why they were in the Goldfield area, we really can't say anything else.

"We're still trying to determine who they are," Estrada said.

Howard Vaughn, a Federal Aviation Administration flight standards manager in Las Vegas, said the helicopter pilots may have violated a regulation that prohibits them from operating at altitudes that would be a hazard to people or property.

Grace Potorti, director of the Rural Alliance for Military Accountability, criticized military officials for conducting a late-night exercise over Goldfield residents when the unpopulated range is designated for that purpose.

"It just gives me shivers to think about the fact that these people woke up wondering if they were in a war zone," she said.

This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/1999/Jun-08-Tue-1999/news/11327100.html

-- a (a@a.a), June 08, 1999

Answers

Most likly, they were lost. Happens all the time.

What's the fuss? I pay good money to go to air shows to see this kind of stuff. These people get it for free?!? Cool.

Maybe I should move out there and keep my...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), June 08, 1999.

Check out the archives under "Military." Great discussions from Forum golden days.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 08, 1999.

An this has WHAT to with Y2K?

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), June 08, 1999.

Military practicing urban warrior training exercises to become 'ready' for Y2K civil unrest.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 08, 1999.

...and you wonder why so many people view doomers as kooks. More required reading for newbies...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), June 08, 1999.

In other words, nothing is "off topic" on this forum. Anything that mentions the government, the military, a foreign country, a foreign country's government or military, food, water, air, anything or any person requiring food, water, or air, utilities, transportation, reatil, wholesale, the JFK assassination, etc. is all Y2K related.

-- Do You See (howstupid@youlook.com), June 08, 1999.

Urban warrior training exercises to prepare for Y2K are thoroughly documented, with .mil links stating the facts openly, in the archives.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 08, 1999.

"Urban warrior training exercises" aren't necessarily bad news. But buzzing Goldfield illegally at night seems unnecessarily robust. And misdirected. Goldfield is an unlikely site for the sort of uproar that would call out Chinooks.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), June 08, 1999.