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Eleven service members are presumed dead after theirU.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter went missing Tuesday night during a training mission off the coast of the Florida panhandle.Human remains and debris were recovered Wednesday as the Coast Guard continued its search, starting work in the pre-dawn morning in thick fog that improved as the day went on, The Associated Press reported.The helicopter was flying near a remote stretch of beach between Pensacola and Destin, near Eglin Air Force Base. The beach is owned by the military and used for test missions.
Of the eleven missing,seven are Marines from a special operations group based in Camp Lejeune. Four others are National Guard soldiers from a unit in Hammond, Louisiana. None has been identified so far, the AP reported. A second Blackhawk taking part in the exercise had returned safely to Eglin.They were part of a training exercise called “insertion and extraction missions,” where boats and helicopters practice getting troops into and out of a site, said Capt. Barry Morris, spokesman for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune.Visibility was reported to be less than two miles in fog, according to the National Weather Service.
