Marine Copters Crash in Desert, San Diego; 6 Die

Three Marines and one Army soldier were killed Tuesday night when two AH-1 Cobra helicopters collided during night training exercises at the sprawling Twentynine Palms Air Ground Combat Center, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.

On Wednesday, two Camp Pendleton Marines were killed in San Diego when their Super Cobra helicopter crashed at Montgomery Field, a civilian suburban airfield.

Witnesses said the helicopter rotor broke off in the air before the craft smashed into the ground. Three small private planes on the ground were damaged.

In the crash at Twentynine Palms, the servicemen were training in close-in air support for ground troops during overnight maneuvers on the base northeast of Palm Springs, the largest Marine facility in the country, spokesman Sgt. Ray Rodriguez said.

The Twentynine Palms accident was the second fatal nighttime training exercise on military bases in California in the last three weeks. At the Army’s Ft. Irwin north of Barstow, two soldiers were killed and 11 were injured Aug. 19 when three tank-like vehicles, traveling abreast in the dark of night, plunged over a 15-foot cliff.

The cause of the collision, which occurred about midnight Tuesday, was not yet known, Rodriguez said.

The dead Marines were based at the Marine Corps Air Station at New River, N.C. The Army soldier was training with their squadron but was based at the Marine Aviation Weapons and Training Squadron at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Ariz.

The helicopter crews, Rodriguez said, were “on a routine ordnance-shoot exercise” involving the movement of tanks and light-armored vehicles with air support provided by various kinds of aircraft.

The helicopters, he said, “come close enough to see the troops, to show that they’re able to provide that close-in support.” The pilots were using night-vision goggles and the Cobras were firing live ammunition, a spokesman said.

Nighttime exercises are routine at the base, which houses about 10,000 Marines full time and accommodates thousands more assigned from around the country for live-fire exercises, Rodriguez said.

This training exercise, he said, involved about 3,000 Marines, including those in the field and others in support roles who were not personally participating in the nighttime training.

In the Ft. Irwin accident, three M-3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles drove over the embankment about the same time, landing upside-down in a ravine.