Fort Campbell Helicopter Crash Kills Two Pilots During Night Training Flight

  Two pilots died when their Apache helicopter from Fort Campbell crashed Wednesday night, according to a spokesman with the 101^st Airborne Division. 

The two unidentified crewmembers were flying an AH-64D Apache during a ”routine” training mission when the aircraft went down in Montgomery County, about 12 miles south of the fort at about 7 p.m.

The Tennessean reported that rescuers found the helicopter on fire in a river bottom
near Gholson Road, just south of Johnson Road.

A cause for the crash has not been determined and authorities withheld the names of the deceased pending notification of family members.

“It is a tragedy and our thoughts and prayers are with the family,” said Maj. Allen Hill, spokesman for the 101st Airborne.

A second Apache was also flying as part of the training and remained in the air to send information to rescuers, Hill said.

A second Apache was also flying as part of the training and remained in the air to send information to rescuers, said Maj. Allen Hill, spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division.

He couldn’t share the exact flight pattern, but said night flights in that area are a common part of training.

“We have the best helicopter pilots in the world and to do that they have to maintain a certain type of proficiency — flying a certain number of daylight hours, a certain number of nighttime hours — this was no different, probably, than any other training event that they conduct,” Hill told WPLN.

Training Crashes Claim Lives

It’s not uncommon for Army helicopters to go down during training exercises. As recently as 2009, four Fort Campbell soldiers were killed when their
Blackhawk crashed in Colorado.

Between 1990 and 1999, seven Fort Campbell helicopter crashes resulted in 22 deaths and dozens of injuries, according to news accounts.

In one of those incidents, in January 1996, two Fort Campbell soldiers survived a crash of the same type of Apache attack helicopter.