Three Soldiers Lost In Canadian Training Mishap

News from overseas now... where two military helicopters have gone down in the past 24 hours.

Two pilots survived the downing of a US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter Thursday while on a combat patrol south of Baghdad. No one is saying what brought the helo down, but it was near an area where another Apache was shot down by insurgents on April 1st.

Closer to home, a Canadian Forces CH-149 Cormorant helo (file photo of type, below)went down in the North Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia Thursday, during what was billed as a training exercise. Sadly, three soldiers with the 413th Transport and Rescue Squadron were killed in the crash, and another four onboard were injured.

Again, no word yet on what brought the Cormorant down... but the helos have been under scrutiny recently over problems with the tail rotor assembly, and the April 2004 downing of a Royal Navy Merlin -- a variant of the Cormorant, which is in turn the search-and-rescue variant of the AgustaWestland EH101.

FMI: www.af.mil, www.forces.gc.ca/site/home_e.asp