US Marines Die in Norway Crash
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NATO officials were quick to note that the “Cold Response” exercise in Norway in which four US Marines were killed Friday night is “unrelated to the war in Ukraine.” The crash site of the Bell-Boeing MV-22B tilt-rotor aircraft in Gråtådalen, Norway is more than 3,000 km from Ukraine.
Four Marines assigned to 2nd Division Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) out of Camp Lejuene, North Carolina were on board the aircraft at the time of the training incident. Norwegian search-and-rescue located the wreckage.
Norwegian Chief of Defence, General Eirik Kristoffersen, said, “It has now sadly been confirmed that the crew on board the American aircraft died in the accident.”
The Cold Response exercise will continue despite the accident, the Norwegian Armed Forces said. The exercises began 14 March and end April 1. About 30,000 troops, 220 aircraft and 50 vessels from 27 countries are participating. Finland and Sweden, both non-NATO members, are also participating.
“This year’s exercise was announced over eight months ago. It is not linked to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, which NATO is responding to with preventive, proportionate, and non-escalatory measures,” NATO said in a statement.
This is the second training exercise in 2022 in which Marines died. Two Marines were killed and 17 others injured on 19 January after a 7-ton military vehicle rolled over in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Across the US Department of Defense, from 2006 to 2020, 5,605 service members were killed in training accidents, representing 32% of all reported active-duty military deaths for that time period and double the percentage of troops killed in action.
The 2018 US General Accounting Office (GAO) report found that DoD military services safety centers “do not collect standardized aviation mishap data for 10 to 17 of the 35 agreed-upon data elements for aviation mishaps,” lack consensus in reporting of causal factors, and do not consistently collect relevant training data to analyze trends in mishaps.
