Nine US soldiers killed in two Black Hawk helicopters crash during training mission

News, US March 31, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

Nine U.S. servicemen from the 101st Airborne Division died in a midair crash that involved the collision of two Black Hawk HH-60 Helicopters. The incident took place on March 30, 2023, in the U.S. southwestern state of Kentucky.

The crash occurred at night time in the Trigg County military base, west of Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Two U.S. Army HH-60 Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopters were conducting a scheduled exercise when they collided with each other in midair. The helicopters crashed in an open field nearby the military base and no casualties were reported from the ground.

According to the Deputy Commander of the 101st Airborne Division Brigadier General John Lubas, one helicopter had four people on board while the other one was carrying five people.

“This was a training progression, and specifically they were flying a multi-ship formation, two ships, under night vision goggles at night,” Lubas said while speaking to the reporters after the accident. He said that according to initial reports, the accident occurred when “they were doing flying, not deliberate medical evacuation drills”.

Shortly after the crash, the U.S. Army’s aircraft security team arrived at the scene from Fort Rucker, Alabama to conduct an initial survey of the crash site in order to determine the cause of the fatal crash.

*^{Debris from a helicopter crash is pictured at the crash site in Trigg County, Kentucky, U.S., on March 29, 2023. (Image Credit: WKDZ Radio/via Reuters)}*

Lubas said that he is confident investigators would be able to pull data from the onboard computers and black box in order to determine the real cause behind the crash.

While speaking at the news conference after the accident, Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear said that his state is ready to help the families of those who were killed in the accident. “We are going to do what we always do. We are going to wrap our arms around these families, and we are going to be there with them, not just for the days, but the weeks and the months and the years to come,” Beshear said.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also released a statement regarding the incident as he said that he was “saddened by this tragic loss” and was working with the Army to “make sure our troops and their families receive the care that they need in the wake of this accident”.

Austin said in a statement released by the U.S. Department of Defense, “My heart goes out to the families of these servicemembers and to the members of the 101st Airborne Division who bravely and proudly serve our country each and every day”.

*^{Police stand near the crash site of two Blackhawk helicopters during a training incident in Trigg County, Kentucky, U.S. (Image Credit: WSMV)}*

The crash comes only two months after a similar incident involving the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was reported from Alabama. Two Tennessee National Guard servicemen were killed in the crash. The U.S. Army sees on average five deaths per year in the form of aviation accidents.

The recent incident is the second most serious helicopter crash involving the U.S. military Black Hawk helicopters. In 2015, eleven service members on board a Black Hawk helicopter died after it crashed off the coast during a training mission that took off from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.