Two United States Army helicopters collided during a training mission over Kentucky on Wednesday night, an Army spokeswoman said.
It was not immediately clear whether there were casualties. The spokeswoman, Nondice L. Thurman, said in a statement early Thursday that the status of the crew members was unknown.
Gov. Andy Beshear said on Twitter that fatalities were expected, and that the Kentucky State Police and the state’s Division of Emergency Management were responding to the accident.
The two HH-60 Black Hawk assault helicopters crashed into each other at about 10 p.m. during a routine training mission in Trigg County, said Ms. Thurman, who works at Fort Campbell, a sprawling Army base along the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
“The command is currently focused on caring for the service members and their families,” she said, adding that the crash was under investigation.
Ms. Thurman said the helicopters were from the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell and is the Army’s only air assault division. It has been deployed to conflict zones around the world.
No other details about the crash, including the number of people aboard the helicopters, were immediately available.
The HH-60, a modified version of the Black Hawk helicopter, can be used for air assaults, medical evacuations and other purposes, according to the Army.
In 2018, seven service members died when an HH60 crashed in Iraq. A military investigation later found that, as a result of a pilot error, the helicopter had struck a steel cable strung horizontally between two buildings.
This is a developing story.