CLARIFICATION: The Marines now say six of the deceased came from Camp Pendleton and the seventh was from the Yuma base.
Originally reported to have involved helicopters from the Miramar Air Base, a crash that killed 7 Marines near Yuma, Arizona, Wednesday night actually involved an AH-1W “Cobra”
and UH-1 “Huey” from Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps confirmed.
]
Six members of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing based at Camp
Pendleton perished around 8 p.m. when the whirlybirds collided during
night training exercises at the Yuma Training Range Complex.
The names of the dead are expected to be released in 24 hours, officials said this morning.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.