The helicopter was participating in a regular training mission west of the joint base Lewis McCord when it crashed around 9pm on Wednesday, the US Army Special Operations Command said. The soldiers were part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, officials said.
Recovery efforts are underway and the cause of the crash fall remains under investigation, Army officials said.
According to the National Weather Service, the skies in the area were mostly clear with light winds from the south at the time of the crash.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources said the crash had caused a small wildfire that had grown to 1.25 acres by Friday morning. The agency said there is one engine in the scene as there is “a fairly minimal fire activity.”
The base is approximately 10 miles south of Tacoma, under the jurisdiction of the US Army Joint Base Headquarters.
This is the second fatal crash of this elite unit in recent years.
As part of military training, five Army Air Special Operations units were killed when a helicopter crashed in the eastern Mediterranean in 2023. They were all part of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment based in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
In March 2024, two soldiers from Lewis McCord’s co-base were hospitalized when an Apache helicopter crashed at the base during a regular training exercise.
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