This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
A helicopter crash at a military base in Alabama on Wednesday afternoon killed one person and injured another, military officials said.
An AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed during routine flight training on Fort Novosel Army base, about 94 miles south of Montgomery, according to a statement from the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Novosel.
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The crash killed the flight instructor, according to the statement. An Army student pilot was airlifted to a hospital for additional evaluation.
Dale County Coroner John Cawley identified the deceased instructor pilot as Daniel Munger, 46, a contractor and retired service member.
Military authorities did not immediately provide information about the circumstances of the crash. The statement said the accident is under investigation.
“Our primary concern is the welfare and health of the student pilot and care and concern for the family of the deceased,” Maj. Gen. Clair A. Gill, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Novosel commanding general, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.
In April the Army ordered a six-month aviation “safety stand up” requiring additional aviation training across the force. That move followed a dozen mishaps — resulting in 10 fatalities — in the first six months of the fiscal year, Army Times previously reported.
“We’ve seen a troubling trend with our accident rates,” Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, director of Army aviation, said on a call with reporters in April. “Certainly, any loss of life is 100% unacceptable and obviously when we have [an] accident where we lose the aircraft or severely damage the aircraft, we consider that unacceptable, too.”
A Class A mishap, under Army definitions, is any which results in the loss of life or the loss of equipment totaling more than $2.5 million. The service records the rate of Class A mishaps per 100,000 flight hours.
The rate as of April was 3.22, more than double the highest rate of any fiscal year in more than a decade, according to readiness center data.
The AH-64 Apache is a two-person aircraft. Fort Novosel was previously known as Fort Rucker. It is the Army’s primary training facility for helicopter pilots.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
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