Skip to footer

Two soldiers killed, 13 injured in two separate military helicopter incidents

Hard landings in Colorado and North Carolina on Wednesday resulted in two deaths and multiple injuries.

|
Lenny Ignelzi/AP/File
A Marine Corps CH-53E helicopter sits in the sand where it made an emergency landing in Solana Beach, Calif., April 15. One Marine has been killed and 9 others were hurt when a helicopter made a hard landing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Wednesday night.
  • By Olivia Lowenberg Staff

One Marine has been killed and 11 others were hurt when a helicopter made a hard landing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the Marines said on Thursday.

The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter came down hard during a training exercise around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Capt. Ryan Elizabeth Alvis said in a statement.

The name of the Marine killed will not be released for 24 hours, which follows US Marine Corps protocol. The names of the other eight Marines, which suffered minor injuries, have also not been released. Captain Alvis said the landing is under investigation, but declined to comment further.

Also on Wednesday, two soldiers were injured in a different hard landing incident near Denver, Colo. No fatalities were reported in that incident and the military officials say the wounded soldiers' injuries are not life threatening.

The two accidents are the most recent in a string of several that have occurred during military training exercises over the past year. In January, a helicopter went down at the Twentynine Palms base in California, killing two people. Wing commander Maj. Gen. Michael Rocco said in a statement regarding those fatalities: "Our hearts go out to the families and friends of the two Marines we lost in this tragic accident."

In March, Reuters reported that 11 Marines were presumed dead in a helicopter crash off the coast of Florida. An anonymous US military official told Reuters that that incident could possibly have been “among the deadliest domestic military training accidents in years.” 

In May, NPR reported that one Marine was killed during a training exercise in Hawaii. The death occurred during an exercise involving an Osprey aircraft. Following initial development by Boeing in 2000, Ospreys were deployed in the Iraq and Afghan wars, and were also used this past spring during aid missions to Nepal.

In June, The Christian Science Monitor compiled a rundown of military aircraft accidents in the first six months of 2015.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Two soldiers killed, 13 injured in two separate military helicopter incidents
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/0903/Two-soldiers-killed-13-injured-in-two-separate-military-helicopter-incidents
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe