@jerry@Nonya_Bidniss This Vietnam exodus story always comes to mind when I see one of these Copters:
==
"Amid the chaos, a larger helicopter moved toward the Kirk. It was a Chinook CH-47, with two rotors that would tear the ship apart if it tried to land. The sailors made frantic signals telling the pilot he couldn't land. The pilot got the message but he was determined to unload his passengers.
Doyle described the scene to Judy in his cassette tape recording.
"Picture this, we're steaming along at about 5 knots. And this huge airplane comes in and hovers over, over the fantail, opened up its rear door, and starts dropping people out of it. It's about 15 feet off the fantail! There's American sailors back on the fantail, catching babies like basketballs!" he said at the time.
A young mother in the helicopter — the wife of the pilot — dropped her three young children, including her 10-month-old baby daughter.
Kent Chipman, a 21-year-old Texan, was one of the sailors who ran under the helicopter to catch the people who jumped out. "I remember the baby coming out," he recalled. "You know, there was no way that we were going to let them hit the deck or drop them. We caught them."
@trolder
So it looks like this flight, STEEL85, was headed to Gulfport, MS home to the Naval Construction Battalion Center. But it is also flying super low over the shore similar to sheriff helicopter. Wonder if it was knocking out two birds with one stone. But I am seeing two when there is only one on radarbox so who knows. @jerry
@chillybot@trolder they had flown the other direction early in the morning, equally low. Both times, the back lift was down and there were people sitting in the back. I strongly suspect they were indeed looking for people that got pulled out during their commute.