Top, from left: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Stephen Dwyer; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shane Barnes; and Staff Sgt. Tanner Grone. Bottom, from left: Sgt. Andrew Southard and Sgt. Cade Wolfe. The five special operations soldiers were killed in the crash of an MH-60 Black Hawk on Nov. 10, 2023. On Thursday, Army officials announced the recovery of the remains of three of the soldiers. (U.S. Army)
The remains of three special operations soldiers who died when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the eastern Mediterranean Sea have been found and will soon be brought to the United States, Army officials said Thursday.
The crash on Nov. 10 claimed the lives of five soldiers, two of whom were recovered immediately afterward. The other three were missing, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command statement said.
The remains will be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for identity verification and eventual return to their families, the statement said.
The Navy contracted a ship that used a deep-sea drone to recover the missing remains Dec. 15, the statement said.
All of the soldiers were assigned to 1st Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) out of Fort Campbell, Ky.
Their names are Chief Warrant Officer 3 Stephen Dwyer, 38, of Clarksville, Tenn.; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Shane Barnes, 34, of Sacramento, Calif.; Staff Sgt. Tanner Grone, 26, of Gorham, N.H.; Sgt. Andrew Southard, 27, of Apache Junction, Ariz.; and Sgt. Cade Wolfe, 24, of Mankato, Minn.
The statement did not specify which soldiers’ remains had been missing.
Defense officials had described the group as a mix of combat-tested aviation troops with deep family ties to the military.
The cause of the crash is under investigation by the Army’s Combat Readiness Center, but there are no signs it was caused by enemy or hostile actions, U.S. military officials said.
The Army special operations aviation team was among the thousands of troops the Pentagon has dispatched to the Mediterranean and the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war began in October.
Stars and Stripes reporter John Vandiver contributed to this report.
