In late December, the citizens of Nago, a town in Okinawa's impoverished rural north, voted by 54% to 46% not to let the American Marine Corps moor a floating helicopter base off the beach, near its existing Camp Schwab.

ECONOMIST: Left on the beach

Franken said five of the Americans ran as they got off the helicopter at the base south of Baghdad.

CNN: Marines rescue seven U.S. prisoners of war

The Royal Navy's largest ship, the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, is moored in the Thames off Greenwich, where it will be a base for helicopter operations and house troops providing security at the Greenwich Park Olympic venue.

CNN: London's Olympic security headache

The Royal Navy's largest ship, the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, is now moored in the Thames off Greenwich, where it will act as a base for helicopter operations and house 400 troops providing security at the Greenwich Park Olympic venue.

CNN: UK faces security questions ahead of London Olympics

The grant from the European Regional Development Fund will help build a new base for the helicopter and charity workers at Newquay Airport.

BBC: European funding for Cornwall's air ambulance

From the British base, a twin-rotor helicopter ferries U.S. Marines and equipment to Camp Dwyer, another British base that now is also home to the U.S. Marines 24th Expeditionary Unit.

NPR: Trip Illuminates Life on Bases Across Afghan Desert

We take off by helicopter from America's main research base in Antarctica toward Cape Royds, where exactly 100 years ago, in 1908, scientists started studying the local penguin colony.

NPR: Penguins Helped and Hurt by Changing Climate

British military spokesman James Lyne, from the RAF base at Kinloss, said the helicopter had landed upright and floated due to flotation bags which inflated when it landed on water.

BBC: Ditched helicopter inquiry begins

In response, the Ecuadorean foreign ministry said the helicopter had been on a supply mission to a base near the border and had strayed into Colombian airspace due to a "navigation error".

BBC: 'Ecuador incursion' into Colombia