Airlifting it out was ruled out, and the weight and size of the Osprey meant it couldn’t be disassembled.
The tiltroter craft was drained of its fuel, and raised up off the ground with a jack, as its landing gear was firmly stuck in the mud, a ramp was built to the shoreline, crews then slowly moved it down the path to the sea.
The wooden mats had to extend to the shoreline so the aircraft could be lifted by crane onto a barge. Gravel had to be brought in the firm up the path and to create a jetty as the terrain turned into an uneven shoreline.
“These things never seem to happen at airfields,” Lt. Gen James C. “Jim” Slife remarked at an AFA Warfighters in Action event Sept. 7. “They always seem to happen in Norwegian nature preserves above the Arctic Circle at the onset of winter.”
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