Military Vehicle Rollover Kills 1 Marine, Injures More Than A Dozen

Military Vehicle Rollover Kills 1 Marine, Injures More Than A Dozen

Micaela Burrow on December 13, 2023

A military vehicle accident killed one Marine and injured more than a dozen more at the Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton, the service announced Wednesday.

An amphibious combat vehicle flipped during ground movement in a training exercise at around 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday, the Marine Corps said in an emailed statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. One Marine died, while the 14 others in the vehicle at the time sustained injuries and were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.

The service said it will withhold the name of the deceased service member until next of kin are notified, a common practice in the military. Names of the injured personnel are not being released “in accordance with Department of Defense policy,” the service said.

The 15 Marines belonged to the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, organized to conduct a variety of specialized tasks for the U.S. including crisis response, amphibious operations and certain special operations activities, according to the unit’s website.

The incident is under investigation, the Marine Corps said in the statement. It’s unclear what caused the accident. Rollover accidents in tactical vehicles outside of combat operations are one of the most common causes of death among on-duty troops, according to Military.com.

Amphibious Combat Vehicles, or ACVs, have proven a particular headache for the Marine Corps since their introduction in 2020, Military.com reported. In January, an ACV tipped over in the waters just off Camp Pendleton’s beaches, but none of the Marines on board were injured. The Marine Corps fired the commander of the Marine Corps’ Assault Amphibian School following that incident.