IRE Radio Podcast | The Navy’s Most Crash-Prone Helicopter

When a Navy helicopter crashed off the coast of Virginia in January 2014, Jason Paladino lost one of his childhood friends - Petty Officer Third Class Brian Collins. But instead of grieving the loss and moving on, Paladino, a journalism grad student at UC-Berkeley, decided to investigate. Working with The Virginian-Pilot and NBC News he helped expose serious problems with the MH-53E Sea Dragon, the Navy’s oldest and most crash-prone helicopter.

On this episode of the podcast we’re going behind the investigation with Paladino, Mike Hixenbaugh of The Virginian-Pilot and Anna Schecter of NBC News.

Find more episodes on our podcast page and on iTunes.

EPISODE NOTES

Looking for links to the stories, resources and events we discussed on this week's podcast? We've collected them for you.

• Learn about the Sea Dragon, the Navy’s most crash-prone helicopter
• Read Mike Hixenbaugh’s January 2015 story "Distress Signal," which follows the story of Lieutenant Wes Van Dorn.
• Read all of The Virginian-Pilot’s stories on the Sea Dragon program.
• Watch the NBC News investigation into the Sea Dragon program.

Read some of the follow-up stories:

• Internal Navy email: Safety of helicopters in question
• Navy orders Sea Dragon Chopper Safety Push After NBC Report
• Navy: Sailors wrongly documented Sea Dragon repairs