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ASSOCIATED PRESS / JAN. 2016
Family, friends and comrades pay their respects during a memorial service on Jan. 22 at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, for the 12 U.S. Marines who died when their helicopters crashed off the North Shore of Oahu.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / JAN. 2016
Memorial services were held for the 12 marines missing in a helicopter crash on the North Shore of Oahu at Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Base on Jan. 22.
The U.S. Marine Corps says it has recovered the remains of nine of the 12 Marines killed when two helicopters crashed during nighttime training off Hawaii.
Remains of three Marines were not recovered, the Marine Corps said today in a statement. Sgts. Dillon Semolina and Adam Schoeller and Cpl. Christopher Orlando are still missing.
The Marines say they have completed recovery operations.
The helicopters were part of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 based at Kaneohe Bay. The Coast Guard initially reported that the choppers had collided, but the Marines said later it wasn’t known whether there was a collision. The cause remains under investigation.
It happened off Oahu’s North Shore in January. The Marine Corps says teams mapped the debris site and recovered significant wreckage from both helicopters.
Human error [if it was] can be mitigated but it is very hard to eliminate entirely. Sad story.