Pete Hegseth

First Update on Guantanamo Bay Operations and Potomac River Mid-Air Collision

delivered 30 January 2025, Washington, D.C.

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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

All right, update this morning. Just got off the phone with the SOUTHCOM Commander and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, talking about our efforts at Guantanamo Bay. That is ongoing. We're leaning forward on supporting the President's directive to make sure that we have a location for violent criminal illegals as they are deported out of the country. No one's going to wait on the Defense Department, and we're working that in real time.

But I also wanted to give an update on the tragedy that happened last night here in Washington D.C. and provide a little bit more information as we are actively working to investigate and understand what occurred and why.

At about 8:48 last night, a UH60 assigned to the U.S. Army Aviation Brigade in the military district of Washington, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, collided tragically with a civilian airliner. The -- The unit involved, the Army unit involved, was Bravo Company 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir. It was an annual proficiency training flight, and when we look at the crew, and we're not -- not all kin have been notified, so we're going to withhold the ranks and names at this point. We do know on our side who was involved. It was a fairly experienced crew and it was doing a required annual night evaluation. They did have night vision goggles.

The 12th Aviation Battalion, as of now, is granted a 48 hour operational pause on -- on contingency missions, as what happened is reviewed. And a senior level aviation team, an investigative team from our aviation safety center, was deployed last night and already is in Washington D.C. to investigate what's going on. We anticipate that the investigation will quickly be able to determine whether the aircraft was in the corridor and at the right altitude at the time of the incident. As I mentioned, next-of-kin notifications are ongoing.

It's a tragedy, a horrible loss of life for those 64 souls on that civilian airliner and, of course, the three soldiers in that Black Hawk.

They're in our prayers.

Their families and -- and their communities, as people are notified -- I can't imagine.

And I know it's -- it's gone from a rescue mission to a recovery mission,  and we're with all the first responders that are moving actively too.

So, at the Defense Department, our thoughts and prayers go out. We are actively investigating to find out what happened and why, and as we get updates you will have them.

God bless.


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