These Are The 12 Marines Who Are Still Missing In Hawaii

[news]

[news]

HONOLULU -- Late Thursday night, two military helicopters on a training mission crashed off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. They were carrying a total of 12 Marines. As of Monday morning, there were no signs of the young men.

"The mission is still search and rescue," Capt. Timothy Irish, a Marine Corps spokesman, told reporters on Sunday. "The mission's highest priority is to recover survivors first and foremost, and any type of salvage operation for the air frame is secondary."

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Marine Corps had immediately begun search-and-rescue operations for the CH-53 transport helicopters and any survivors on Thursday, but stormy conditions and larger than normal swells on the island's north shore complicated efforts. By Monday, the Army, the Navy and Honolulu's police and fire departments had joined the round-the-clock search, with an expanded coverage area reaching the western and northeastern sides of the island and 8 miles out to sea. Some debris from the helicopters, including three life rafts, has been recovered.

The aircraft are from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, Marine Aircraft Group 24, 1st MAW in Hawaii. pic.twitter.com/Gn4VmXOIgM
— U.S. Marines (@USMC) January 15, 2016

Despite initial reports that the two helicopters collided, Irish said it's still not clear what happened.

"We think they collided because both of them went down," Mario Vittone, a retired Coast Guardsman who is an expert on sea survival, told The Associated Press. He added that any survivors would have faced the crash itself, the initial rush of water and since then exposure to the elements. 

Below, the names and stories of the Marines who are currently missing in Hawaii.


The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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