A recent army report says early investigation has confirmed that two Black Hawk helicopters collided midair before crashing in Trigg County March 29, killing all nine soldiers onboard.
The preliminary loss report doesn’t give a reason for the collision, but says “while conducting night training in a military operations area/special use airspace, two HH-60 aircraft collided midair.”
The crash killed 33-year-old Warrant Officer Jeffery Barnes, 23-year old Corporal Emilie Marie Eve Bolanos, 36-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Zachary Esparza, 27-year-old Sgt. Isaacjohn Gayo, 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Joshua Caleb Gore, 32-year-old Warrant Officer Aaron Healy, 30-year-old Staff Sgt. Taylor Mitchell, 32-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Rusten Smith and 23-year-old Sgt. David Solinas Jr.
All nine victims were assigned to the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade.
The report says ‘a centralized accident investigation team from U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center is leading the investigation,’ and adds that since Fiscal Year 2018, the Army has had an average of seven Class A aviation flight mishaps and lost an average of five soldiers per year to on-duty aviation mishaps.
This was the fourth such aviation mishap of fiscal year 2023 and one above the number of similar mishaps during the same time last year.