9 killed in crash of 2 US Army Black Hawk helicopters in Kentucky
- The incident took place during a routine nighttime training mission, and is one of the US military’s deadliest such accidents in recent years
- The helicopters were HH-60 variants designed to provide support for various operations, including air assaults and medical evacuations
Nine soldiers were killed in a crash of two medical evacuation Black Hawk helicopters during a routine nighttime training mission over Kentucky, the US Army said on Thursday, in one of the military’s deadliest training accidents in recent years.
Crew members using night-vision goggles were flying two HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, operated by the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, when the aircraft crashed in a field late on Wednesday over Kentucky’s Trigg County.
Army Brigadier General John Lubas, the division’s deputy commanding officer for operations, said little was known so far about why the helicopters came down and he acknowledged he was not even sure whether they crashed into each other.
Lubas said an aircraft safety investigations team from Fort Rucker in Alabama would arrive later on Thursday to review data from on-board computers, which he said were similar to the black boxes in commercial aircraft.
“At this point, we don’t know. We’re hopeful that when we get the team from Fort Rucker here and they’re able to pull some of the data out of the on-board computers we will have a better understanding of exactly what happened,” Lubas told reporters outside the base.