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 Brig-Gen 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. “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 onboard computers we will have a better understanding of exactly what happened,” Lubas told reporters outside the base. Lubas added that one helicopter had five soldiers aboard while the other had four, and they were using night-vision goggles.—Reuters
