The five Marines who went missing while traveling aboard a helicopter from Nevada to California have been found dead, officials said Thursday morning.
Officials said Thursday that the Marines were conducting a training exercise and flying a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter from Creech Air Force Base in Clark County, Nevada to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, California. The helicopter reported its last-known location at around 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and was reported overdue at around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to the Marine Corps.
The crashed helicopter was found in a mountainous, rugged area east of San Diego at around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, officials said. Search and rescue crews and federal and local agencies looked for the Marines as rain and snow lashed the area. The weather conditions complicated the search efforts, with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department saying that heavy cloud cover early Wednesday morning prevented it from deploying its helicopter. The U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Border Patrol also contributed to the search effort, since the area where the helicopter crashed is near the U.S.-Mexico border.