Three members of the Idaho Army National Guard perished after their UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a routine training flight, officials said in a news release on Facebook.
According to the post, the crash occurred south of Lucky Peak near Boise shortly after 8 pm Tuesday local time. The aircraft and the deceased personnel were recovered at approximately 12:15 am Wednesday morning.
ABC News quoted a spokesman for the Idaho National Guard as saying that the chopper crashed in a mountainous area during snowfall.
“It’s been poor conditions on and off throughout the period. It hampered our initial air search efforts when we were notified that the emergency locator had triggered. As as result we immediately launched a ground crew to search. At approximately 11 p.m. the weather improved enough to launch another aircraft to commence the air search. And after midnight tonight, approximately 12:15 a.m. our search and rescue crew located the aircraft and confirmed there were no survivors”, ABC quoted Lt. Col. Christopher Borders as saying.
Idaho Senator Jim Risch took to Twitter to express his condolences to the families of the deceased and the Idaho National Guard.