A US Navy helicopter crashed in California just one day after an Osprey fell in the same region and killed all five on board.
The Navy helicopter that dropped on Thursday was an MH-60S Seahawk stationed at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California. It crashed in the southern California desert just north of Yuma, Arizona, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The accident occurred as the MH-60S Seahawk was flying a routine training flight from Naval Air Facility El Centro – the same station that initially reported the Osprey crash on Wednesday.
All four crew members survived the crash and were safely recovered. One crew member was hospitalized with a non-life-threatening injury.
The Osprey, a tiltrotor aircraft stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, crashed in Glamis, California, which is the same remote region of Imperial County where the Navy helicopter went down.
The Marine Corps will not identify the soldiers killed until after all of their families have been notified. One marine, Nathan Carlson of Machesney Park, Illinois, was identified by friends and family on social media.
‘We mourn the loss of our Marines in this tragic mishap,’ Maj Gen Bradford J Gering, commander of the Osprey’s Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, tweeted on Thursday. ‘Our hearts go out to their families and friends as they cope with this tragedy.’
The Osprey has been widely criticized as unsafe. There have been twelve Osprey crashes since the military began testing the aircraft in 1991, and a total of 46 soldiers have been killed.
Most recently, an Osprey participating in a NATO exercise in Norway crashed in Beiarn, Norway, killing all four crew members.
In one particularly bad training accident in 2000, 19 marines simulating a rescue mission were killed while attempting to land at Marana Northwest Regional Airport in Arizona.
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