Four Marines Killed in Crash of Helicopter

Four Camp Pendleton Marines were killed when their helicopter crashed during a training flight Wednesday afternoon near the Salton Sea, a Marine spokesman said.

The UH-1 Huey utility troop transport helicopter crashed at about 5 p.m. in farmland outside Calipatria, about 125 miles east of San Diego, the spokesman said.

The aircraft was assigned to the Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 169, based at Camp Pendleton north of San Diego, he said.

Names of the dead were being withheld until their families could be notified, he said.

It was the second fatal crash involving a Camp Pendleton helicopter within the past four months.

Two Marine aviators, one a squadron commander, were killed June 19 when their Cobra attack helicopter crashed at the Naval Weapons Station near Fallbrook.

Before the June accident, the last fatal accident by a Camp Pendleton-based helicopter occurred July 27, 1990, when two Marines were killed and three others injured after their UH-1N Huey crashed in the Chocolate Mountains of Imperial County.