Four crew members on an Army helicopter died when it crashed at Fort Hood, the Texas base’s press office said.
The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter went down sometime after 5:49 p.m. Monday in the northeastern part of the Fort Hood Range.
Emergency crews conducted “an extensive search” that ended with the discovery of the four deceased crew members.
The Fort Hood statement did not immediately identify the crash victims, beyond saying they’d been assigned to Division West, First Army.
“They were on a routine training mission at the time,” the Army base said. “… The cause of the crash is unknown at this time.”
Located in Killeen between Dallas and San Antonio, Fort Hood is one of the Army’s largest bases, with a population of about 218,000, including active-duty personnel, their family members and others. It is home to the 1st Cavalry Division and the West Division of the First Army as well as other units, including the Headquarters Command III Corps, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and 3rd Air Support Operations Group
U.S. military aircraft have crashed before while on training missions back home.
In May, two Marines died after the MV-22 Osprey they were on experienced a “hard landing mishap” at Hawaii’s Bellows Air Force Station.
And in March, 11 service members were killed when their Black Hawk helicopter went down in waters off the Florida Panhandle. The aircraft had aborted its training mission due to bad weather just before it crashed.
