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A second Marine died of injuries he suffered when a hybrid military aircraft crashed last weekend during a training exercise at Bellows, the Marine Corps said Wednesday.
Capt. Brian Block said Lance Cpl. Matthew J. Determan, 21, of Maricopa, Ariz., died Tuesday. Determan was a rifleman assigned to 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, and was stationed at Camp Pendleton.
His awards include the National Defense Service Medal and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.
The crash also killed Lance Cpl. Joshua Barron, 24, of Spokane, Wash.
The MV-22B Osprey, which can fly like a helicopter and a fixed-wing airplane, went down Sunday at Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo with 21 Marines and a Navy corpsman on board. Two Marines were still hospitalized in stable condition, Block said.
The Osprey had taken off from the USS Essex, a Navy ship 100 miles offshore. It was flying to Oahu to drop off infantry Marines for training on land, said Block, a spokesman for the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The crash didn’t stop the unit’s exercises, Block said. The Marines also don’t plan to ground their fleet of Ospreys, despite calls to do so from the governor of Okinawa, Japan, where many of the aircraft are based.
The Ospreys are taking part this week in the inaugural U.S. Pacific Command Amphibious Leaders Symposium at Bellows Air Force Station on Oahu. However, the training exercise that included the crash was not part of that event.
