Defense Department archeologists set out to investigate the wreckage and remains of a military aircraft and its crew that were discovered on a glacier in Alaska earlier this month, announced the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. An Army National Guard UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crew first spotted and photographed the apparent crash site on a June 10 training sortie, according to JPAC’s June 20 release. Just nine days later, a specialized JPAC investigation team arrived from JB Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, to survey the crash site on Knik Glacier, roughly 45 miles east of Anchorage, for a potential recovery operation. The aircraft’s identity is a mystery, but it is “on our front burner,” said JPAC spokeswoman Michelle Thomas, reported the Anchorage Daily News (via Stars and Stripes) June 17. “We have gotten some phone calls from family members, just wondering if it’s a case linked to that area,” but the command doesn’t want to raise false hope, she added.
The 301st Fighter Wing in Fort Worth, Texas, became the first standalone Reserve unit in the Air Force to get its own F-35s, welcoming the first fighter Nov. 5.