3 Bodies From Copter Crash Found
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SAN DIEGO — The Navy has recovered the bodies of three of the seven military personnel who died in a Dec. 9 Marine Corps helicopter crash and attempts will be made to recover the other four, a Marine spokesman said Saturday.
The bodies were recovered from the wreckage of the helicopter in 3,900 feet of water, 14 miles off Point Loma. The CH-46 Sea Knight went down during a training exercise.
The victims were identified as Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Starling, Cpl. Mark Baca, and Petty Officer Jay J. Asis.
Recovery was made with the assistance of a deep-diving robotic vehicle called Scorpio launched from a flat-bottomed ship equipped for recovery and salvage missions.
The ship returned to San Diego on Saturday. It is scheduled to return to the crash site to continue recovery efforts.
A spokesman said that recovery of the bodies is the military’s top priority, with recovery of the aircraft wreckage only a secondary objective. The Navy has warned that the depth and enormous water pressure could make it impossible to recover the 23,000-pound helicopter.
Six Marines and one Navy medical corpsman died in the crash. Eleven other Marines were rescued.
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