US military working to recover 70 ton vehicle from Lithuanian swamp as 4 Army soldiers remain missing
US Navy divers have successfully attached two lines to hoist points on a sinking M88 Hercules armored recovery vehicle that was carrying four US Army soldiers who disappeared early Tuesday during a training exercise near Pabradė, Lithuania.The soldiers, based in Fort Stewart in Georgia, were riding in the vehicle on a scheduled maintenance mission to recover another US Army vehicle in the training area when they disappeared.After the second line was attached to a hoist point on the Hercules on Sunday, the Army said the vehicle could be anchored to prevent it from sinking further into the bog it was in.“Engineers expect to start winching early this morning,” the US Army Europe and Africa said in a post on X.“The process is projected to take a significant amount of time and effort, as the terrain surrounding the peat bog remains challenging – but the rescue workers will not be deterred.”Earlier in the day, divers had shackled the first line to a hoist point on the Hercules, though winching efforts were expected to take longer than expected with both lines attached because of the amount of pressure and suction from the mud, the Army noted.US Army operations for Europe and Africa said in a press release that the Hercules had continued to sink into the bog.
The vehicle was estimated to be about four meters below the water’s surface and encased in about two meters of mud.To assist with digging and pumping operations, a Rapidly Available Interface for Trans-loading (RAIL) system was expected to arrive on the scene later in the day.The RAIL system is traditionally used to help offload and onload railroad networks in challenging terrain, though engineers believed it could help stabilize the ground around the recovery site.“It is highly complex trying to get to the vehicle itself with the terrain out here and where the M88 is sitting in a bog swamp-like area, below the waterline.So not only are we dealing with the terrain, a lot of mud that is over top ...