According to the initial press release by the 101st Airborne, the crash occurred while the participants were engaged in a ‘routine training mission’.
We have since learned that this crash has, tragically, resulted in nine fatalities, which is to say, there were no survivors among those on board.
Understandably, no names will be made public until the various next of kin have been duly notified.
A formal announcement was made about the incident this morning, and the 12-minute presser, including remarks from the Governor, can be viewed here:
A witness to the crash described what he saw last night:
“For whatever reason last night my wife and I were sitting there looking out on the back deck and I said “Wow, those two helicopters look low and they look kind of close to one another tonight,'” he said.
The helicopters flew over and looped back around and moments later “we saw what looked like a firework went off in the sky.”
“All of the lights in their helicopter went out. It was like they just poofed … and then we saw a huge glow like a fireball,” Tomaszewski said.
Flyovers for training exercises happen almost daily and the helicopters typically fly low but not so close together, he said.
“There were two back to back. We typically see one and then see another one a few minutes later, and we just saw two of them flying together last night,” he said. –BuffaloNews
It is moments like this that remind us that wearing the uniform is no small sacrifice.
Even when they are not deployed, they are engaged in the kind of dangerous training that is required for someone to be considered truly battle-ready.
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