Helicopter that crashed, killed three was on routine border mission, officials say

The two National Guard soldiers and a Border Patrol agent who were killed in a helicopter crash Friday in southern Texas were on a flight that was considered a routine mission supporting federal border operations, officials said Saturday.

The crash, which occurred at 2:50 p.m., also seriously injured a third National Guard soldier, according to a statement on X, by Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau. The names of those onboard have not been released.

The helicopter, a UH-72 Lakota, which is a light utility aircraft, was on a mission near Rio Grande City, according to Joint Task Force North, an operation under the U.S. Defense Department that supports Customs and Border Protection with National Guard units.

The crash was unrelated to Operation Lone Star, the border program led by the state of Texas.

The flight was “providing monitoring and detecting capabilities along that sector of the border,” Maj. Ryan Wierzbicki, a spokesperson for Joint Task Force North, said by email. All three people killed had been deployed to the southwest border since October, he added.

The helicopter was patrolling the border and following people who were crossing into the United States illegally when it crashed in an open field, said Judge Eloy Vera, the top local official in Starr County, where the crash occurred.

Three of the people onboard were men and one was a woman, Vera said, adding that the Border Patrol agent had been stationed in Rio Grande City.

The investigation of the crash will be handled by the Army’s Combat Readiness Center in Fort Novosel, Alabama. The center sends investigators and subject-matter experts to what the Army describes as “class A accidents,” or those that result in deaths, severe injuries and property damage of at least $2 million, or ones involving destroyed or missing Army aircraft.

President Joe Biden mourned the deaths in a statement Saturday. “These brave Americans dedicated their lives to protecting our nation,” he said.”Our gratitude is profound, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

No one on the ground in the area where the helicopter crashed was injured, Wierzbicki said. The wreckage was found in La Grulla, a small city of roughly 1,400 people about 110 miles west of South Padre Island.

The crash comes amid heightened scrutiny and political tensions involving the border, federal immigration policy and Texas’ attempts to stem the number of migrant crossings.

Overall, more migrants were caught crossing the southern border in the past year than in any other year since at least 1960, when the government started keeping track of the data. There were more than 2.4 million apprehensions in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September, and that represented the third record-setting year in a row.

The number of people crossing into the United States from Mexico declined by 50% in January from December, which had a record nearly 250,000 people, Customs and Border Protection said. But crossings typically dip in January.

Rio Grande City is about 15 miles west of La Grulla and has a population of 14,000. The city is the largest in Starr County, which had been a frequent crossing point for migrants.

The Trump administration had constructed steel segments as a border barrier to deter and redirect unauthorized crossings. The work stopped after President Joe Biden took office, but he has since reversed course. Separately, the state of Texas has also been slowly building its own barrier.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.