The United States Secretary of Defence, Lloyd J. Austin has sent his condolences to the families of the Marine corps who lost their lives to aircrash during a training exercise in Australia on Sunday.
Reacting to the unfortunate incident through his social media platform on Sunday said these Marines served their country with courage and pride, and his thoughts and prayers are with their families today.
According to him, “We tragically lost service members during training exercise in Australia overnight.
“These Marines served our country with courage and pride, and my thoughts and prayers are with their families today, with the other troops who were injured in the crash, and with the entire USMC family”, he said.
It was reported that a United States military aircraft crashed on a north Australian island on Sunday, killing three Marines and injuring 20 during a multination training exercise, officials said.
While three had been confirmed dead on Melville Island and five of the 23 on board had been flown in serious conditions 80km (50 miles) to the mainland city of Darwin for hospital treatment after the crash.
The report stated further that this incident happened during Exercise Predator Run, a joint military exercise involving troops from the United States, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia and Timor-Leste.
Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese called the crash a “tragic” incident. “Our focus as a government and as a department of defence is very much on incident response and on making sure that every support and assistance is given at this difficult time,” he said.