12 November 2023 , 16:39
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Five crew members have been killed in a US military aircraft crash following a "mishap" exercise that ended in the Mediterranean Sea.
During a routine air refueling mission as part of military training on Friday evening, a US aircraft crashed into the sea killing all crew members, according to authorities. A search and rescue mission began immediately, which included nearby US military aircraft and ships, a U.S. European Command spokesperson said.
EUCOM said it was withholding the names of the troops until 24 hours after next of kin notifications have been completed. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the fallen,” EUCOM said. “An investigation into the crash is underway.” The identification of the type of plane involved in the crash was not disclosed.
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The US aircraft crashed during training (Getty Images)The Air Force has sent additional squadrons to the region and the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which has an array of aircraft on board, has also been operating in the eastern Mediterranean.
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An earlier statement from EUCOM said the incident was a "mishap" during training and not an indication of hostile activity. It is unclear if the air refuelling exercise was related to activities in the region. The incident comes after tensions in the eastern Mediterranean have risen following the Pentagan's decision to move forces in the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war. Two Navy aircraft carriers, involving 11,000 US personnel, launched aircraft and practiced missile defence during a three-day exercise in the area last week.
The military crash comes just months after eight US marines were injured in a fiery crash of a tiltrotor aircraft that killed three of their colleagues on an island in Australia. All 20 survivors were flown from Melville Island 50 miles south to Darwin within hours of the Marine V-22 Osprey crashing in August during a multinational training exercise, Northern Territory Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said. All were taken to the Royal Darwin Hospital, and 12 had been discharged, she said. The first five Marines to arrive at the city’s main hospital were critically injured and one underwent emergency surgery.
“It’s ... a credit to everyone involved that we were able to get 20 patients from an extremely remote location on an island into our tertiary hospital within a matter of hours,” Fyles told reporters. Around 150 U.S. Marines are currently based in Darwin and up to 2,500 rotate through the city every year. They are part of a realignment of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific that is broadly meant to face an increasingly assertive China.
The bodies of the three Marines remained at the crash site, where an exclusion zone would be maintained, Northern Territory Police Commissioner Michael Murphy said.