1 Marine Dead, 8 Missing After Southern California ‘Training Mishap'

Kraut783

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"A search for eight Camp Pendleton Marines was underway Friday morning following a "training mishap" involving an Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) near San Clemente Island in Los Angeles County, according to the United States Marine Corps. One Marine died following the training incident."

Hoping for the best.....

1 US Marine Dead, 8 Missing in Southern California 'Training Mishap'
 
Those things would always take on a little bit of water when you first splash in, they'd sink a bit really and it was nerve-wracking. Getting out of one when you're actively taking on water is difficult. They had 15 people, but there's really only two small exit points for the guys in the back, unless they managed to get the top hatch open somehow.

Hopefully the others are found safe. Not a good situation to be in.
 
They take on water, but there are 4 bilge pumps that push out water continuously. It could have been the back hatch not being locked or them losing power. The bilge pumps operate off the electrical system. Very sad to hear
 
AAVs were the worst. It was a deathtrap more than an Osprey in my experience. And I was in an Osprey crash on one occasion. Broke a rib but I'd rather do that again than an amphib OP on AAVs any day of the week.
 
I didn't do much in them, but those things always gave me the heebie-jeebies. I would fly on anything willingly before getting into one of those.

Prayers out. That really stinks.
 
Although I've found the engineering of AAVs or "Gators" fascinating, I've had a touch and go personal experience with these amphibious craft. I grant the utmost respect for Marine 1833s and feel for this unfortunate news and hope the missing are found. In the recent TCAT 2020 exercise, I had employed two P100 dewatering pumps along with the AAV Bilge pumps and it was just enough to keep these work-horses afloat in a damage control setting in a training environment.
 
I used to be with AAV bn, and everytime we splashed, one would deadline in the water.

Then youd flip a 180 and race back to shore, and get your NAM.

Kind of a death/NAM lottery every training evolution if you will. Then dont even get me started on how many hours of maintainence is needs for 1 hour in the water.

RIP to the deceased and hope we find the missing. We really need to do away with AAVs
 
"I'd rather survive an aircraft crash than ride in an AAV."

As a guy with... a few thousand hours as a passenger in all manner of aircraft and situations...holy shit.

Blue skies.
It was mostly a very hard landing, just to clear things up for readers. We just dropped while landing in Corsica suddenly, rib met buttstock... I still absolutely hated riding in AAVs in the water. I'm not sure I met anyone that was comfortable before those OPs.
 
So, if they sink reliably enough, why isn't there an upfit on them for at least training purposes that is like (if not just retrofitted)helo emergency pontoons or something for an additional buoyancy increase? Even if it doesn't prevent total sinking, it'd at least give more time to unass the AO.
 
It was mostly a very hard landing, just to clear things up for readers. We just dropped while landing in Corsica suddenly, rib met buttstock... I still absolutely hated riding in AAVs in the water. I'm not sure I met anyone that was comfortable before those OPs.

I was in a hard landing in a -46 (still my favorite helo), and I'd much rather takes my chances in the air than the AAV....
 
Blue skies.

And the person/team responsible for posting about the 'mishap' needs to be fucking fired.
 
Rest in Peace. My thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends.
 
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