4 Fatal Accidents in the U.S. Military in a Week: 3 Aircraft Crashes and a Car Accident

On June 9th, at around 6 p.m. local time, a U.S. Navy aircraft, MH-60S Seahawk, crashed into the ground at the location 35 miles north of Yuma, Arizona. It was conducting a routine training flight from Naval Air Facility El Centro. This was the third aircraft crash to happen to the U.S. Navy within the week.

The Navy later stated that all four aircrews on board the helicopter survived, though one sailor suffered “non-life-threatening injuries” and had to be taken to a nearby hospital.

A day before, on June 8th, the Marine Corps confirmed the crash of an MV-22B Osprey aircraft in Glamis – a small town between El Centro, Calif., and Yuma, Ariz, which caused all the lives of the five Marines.

The week before, another two Navy servicemen were killed in separate accidents that both happened in southern California.

On June 3rd, a Super Hornet jet crashed near Trona, California, about 250 miles away from Naval Air Station Lemoore, which caused the death of Lt. Richard Bullock; the same day, 29-year-old Electronics Technician 2nd Class John Deltoro died in a car accident while returning from training at Camp Billy Machen in Niland, a town located just to the north of El Centro. According to the reports, Deltoro and four other sailors were driving around 10 p.m. when their vehicle suddenly went off the road and smashed into a large boulder. The four other sailors in the car survived but had to be hospitalized.