The helicopter was on a routine training mission west of Joint Base Lewis-McChord when it crashed at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command said. The soldiers were part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Airborne, officials said.
Recovery efforts are underway, and the cause of the crash remains under investigation, Army officials said.
The skies in the area were mostly clear with light winds from the south around the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service.
The crash sparked a small wildfire that had grown to 1.25 acres by Friday morning, the Washington Department of Natural Resources said. The agency said there was “pretty minimal fire activity” so they had one engine on the scene.
The base is about 10 miles south of Tacoma under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Joint Base Headquarters.
This is the second deadly crash of this elite unit in recent years.
Five Army aviation special operations forces were killed when a helicopter crashed in the Eastern Mediterranean in 2023 during a routine air refueling mission as part of military training. They were all part of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
In March 2024, two soldiers from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord SOAR unit were hospitalized when their Apache helicopter crashed at the base during a routine training exercise.
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