Three soldiers died and another was injured when a pair of AH-64 Apache helicopters based at Fort Wainwright crashed Thursday near Healy, Alaska, according to the 11th Airborne Division.

The two helicopters from the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment collided while returning from a training flight.

Two troops died on scene, a division press release said, and a third died on the way to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. The injured soldier is being treated there, though their condition is unclear.

“This is an incredible loss for these soldiers’ families, their fellow soldiers, and for the division,” said Maj. Gen. Brian Eifler, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division. “Our hearts and prayers go out to their families, friends and loved ones, and we are making the full resources of the Army available to support them.”

The crash is the second serious Apache crash in Alaska this year. In February, two soldiers were injured when a military helicopter was involved in a rollover accident in Talkeetna. The crash occurred when the helicopter was taking off. Those soldiers were treated and released from the hospital.

The division said it will publicly identify the soldiers 24 hours after their families were notified.

It is the second fatal helicopter collision in two months involving Army aircraft. Nine soldiers were killed when two Black Hawks crashed near Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in March. According to a preliminary report released earlier this month, the two helicopters collided mid-air before going down. Investigators are still continuing their inquiry into that crash.

Impacted soldiers can find assistance at Fort Wainwright’s Emergence Assistance Center and from Army Community Service, the release added.

Investigators from the Army Combat Readiness Center, the service‘s safety authority at Fort Novosel, Alabama, will probe the crash.

About $2.3 million was overpaid to nearly 7,800 airmen because of an agency error, according to Air Force spokeswoman Tech. Sgt. Deana Heitzman.

The Air Force Personnel Center Operating Location Indianapolis in December 2022 stopped hardship duty pay for 11 different locations in Republic of Korea, but that was backdated to March 1, 2022. That resulted in $2,337,437.28 being overpaid to service members, who were receiving the entitlement that had previously been authorized and were unaware that it was an overpayment. The amount each service member received varied, ranging from $1.67 to $501.67 each, according to Heitzman.

Sometimes the Department of Defense overpays service members because of administrative errors in processing pay and allowances or when calculating pay and leave. Individual services are responsible for recouping the overpayments. The Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2019 stating the DoD process for getting back that money is sometimes inconsistent and that the debts can end up at collection agencies.

The Air Force will not treat these overpayments as a debt owed, however.

“Due to no fault of the members, they accrued a debt,” Heitzman explained in a statement provided to Military Times. “The Air Force determined it was in the best interest of the service to remit the debts and not pursue collection actions.”

The overpayments were first reported by Military.com.

Army Reserve Chief Warrant Officer 3 Larry A. Zich assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 37th Signal Battalion, 1st Signal Brigade in April 1972, according to the agency.

On April 3, Zich was one of four soldiers on a combat support mission from Marble Mountain, Da Nang, South Vietnam, to Quang Tri City, South Vietnam on a UH-1H Iroquois helicopter. Zich was the co-pilot. During the flight, the pilot told a ground control approach controller that he was lost but believed they were near Quang Tri. The controller could not locate the helicopter on radar and reported the crew missing.

The helicopter did not land at any bases in South Vietnam, and an aerial search found no sign of the aircraft or the crew. The Joint Casualty Resolution Center conducted a dozen investigations into this incident between 1993 and 2014.

In April 1988, a Vietnamese refugee gave the Defense Intelligence Agency human remains that reportedly belonged to nine people killed in an aircraft crash and buried in Quang Nam Province. The same month, those remains were sent to a lab in Hawaii.

Scientists used dental, anthropological, and DNA analysis to identify Zich’s remains. He will be buried in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Army Sgt. Gregory V. Knoll was assigned to Company M, 3rd Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, according to the agency. He was reported killed in action on Nov. 7, 1944.

Knoll’s battalion had been tasked with capturing Schmidt, Germany, a town in the Hürtgen Forest. After German soldiers overran the unit, survivors withdrew to Kommerscheidt and continued fighting German forces.

The American Graves Registration Command, responsible for recovering American service members in Europe, conducted several investigations in the Hürtgen area between 1946 and 1950. They were unable to recover or identify Knoll’s remains.

A historian studying American losses in Hürtgen determined a set of remains could be Knoll. The remains were recovered at Kommerscheidt in 1946 and had been buried in Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium in 1949. They were disinterred in July 2021 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. Scientists used anthropological analysis, circumstantial evidence and DNA analysis to identify Knoll’s remains.

A rosette will be placed by Knoll’s name on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium. He will be buried in Garden City, Kansas on July 7, 2023.

Eleventh Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. David Nahom relieved Brig. Gen. Paul R. Birch because of “shortfalls in his personal conduct prior to taking command,” according to a statement, without providing any additional details.

“I did not make this decision lightly,” Nahom said. “Commanders must always be held to the highest standards.”

Birch assumed command of the 36th Wing in June 2022, according to his official biography. Prior to serving as the 36th Wing Commander, he was chief of the Air Force strategic planning integration division at the Pentagon. Birch graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1996 and has more than 2,100 flying hours, including 750 combat hours. He has a Ph.D. from Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

The 36th Wing has 8,000 joint military and civilian personnel on Andersen Air Force Base. Its squadrons execute bomber task forces, tanker task forces, contingency response operations and theater security packages in the Indo-Pacific.

Col. Larry Fenner Jr., 36th Wing Vice Commander, is serving as the interim wing commander.

Army Pfc. Harry J. Hartmann was a member of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the fall of 1950. He was reported missing in action on Nov. 2 during fighting near Unsan, North Korea. According to repatriated POWs, Hartmann was captured and held as a prisoner of war at Camp #5, Pyoktang, North Korea. He died on or around March 31, 1951.

Nearly 500 sets of remains from burial sites at Camp #5 were returned to the U.S. as part of Operation Glory after the war ended. All but 38 were identified. The unidentified remains were buried in 1956 as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also called the Punchbowl, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

As DPAA scientists continue work to identify the remains of American service members killed in the Korea War, a number of the remains from Camp #5 were exhumed and moved to the laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Scientists used dental, anthropological, and DNA analysis to identify Hartmann’s remains.

A rosette will be placed by McKeon’s name on the Courts of the Missing at the Punchbowl, and he will be buried in his home state of New Jersey.

Scientists positively identified Army Tech Sgt. Matthew L. McKeon’s remains on Jan. 12, 2023, according to a March 16 release from the agency.

McKeon was assigned to Company K, 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division in November 1944. He was reported killed in action when his unit was fighting German forces near Hürtgen, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest. At the time, his remains were not recovered.

The American Graves Registration Command, tasked with investigating and recovering missing American service members in Europe, was unable to identify McKeon’s remains, despite several investigations in the Hürtgen area for several years after the war’s end.

An historian determined that a set of unidentified remains which had been recovered near Hürtgen and buried at Ardennes American Cemetery in 1950 could belong to a service member missing from combat in November 1944. The remains were disinterred in June 2021 and sent to the DPAA laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base. Scientists identified McKeon’s remains using dental and anthropological analysis, as well as DNA analysis.

A rosette will be placed by McKeon’s name on the Walls of the Missing at Netherlands American Cemetery.

Army Cpl. Clark E. Worline was reported missing in action on Nov. 26, 1950, according to the agency. He was a member of C Company, 2nd Chemical Mortar Battalion, 8th U.S. Army. His unit was fighting the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces near Sinjang, North Korea, at the time of his disappearance.

There are no records or eyewitness accounts which verify Worline was a POW, but it was common for prisoners not to know other captives who died.

After the United States signed an armistice with North Korea in 1953, officials decided the sides would exchange the remains of deceased service members for repatriation, an effort that was named Operation Glory. United Nations forces recovered and returned thousands of remains, including those from POW Camps, POW march routes, and isolated burials from battlefield losses.

Worline’s remains were among dozens from Prisoner of War Camp no. 5 that were buried as Unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also called the Punchbowl, in Honolulu in 1956.

In 2019, those remains were disinterred and transferred to the DPAA Laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for analysis. Scientists identified Worline’s remains using dental and anthropological analysis in addition to circumstantial evidence.

A rosette will be placed by Worline’s name on the Courts of the Missing in the Punchbowl, and his remains will be buried in Ohio on a date not yet determined.

Army Sgt. Thaddeus S. Matuszak, Army Pfc. William L. Simon, and Army Air Forces Tech Sgt. Frank C. Ferrel have all been all accounted for since September 2022.

Sgt. Thaddeus S. Matuszak

Matuszak was assigned to Company K, 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division in September 1944, according to the agency. It was part of Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army, which had been fighting across France. In September, the German army stopped them at the Moselle River near Dornot. Some soldiers held their position against the Germans at the edge of a forest they called Horseshoe Woods.

Matuszak was reported missing after the fight, but soldiers were unable to recover his body because of the fighting and the German army’s presence along the river.

As part of ongoing research on soldiers missing from combat at Horseshoe Woods, historians and archaeologists discovered remains that could match Matuszak. The remains were disinterred in September 2018 and sent to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, for analysis. Scientists use dental and anthropological evidence to positively identify Matuszak, as well as circumstantial evidence and DNA analysis.

A rosette will be placed by his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Lorraine American Cemetery in France. He will be buried in Wisconsin.

Pfc. William L. Simon

Simon was assigned to Company G, 2nd Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, according to the agency. Simon was reported killed in action in November 1944, when his unit was battling German forces near Hürtgen, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest.

Simon’s remains were not recovered after the battle and were not identified during investigations in the Hürtgen area between 1946 and 1950.

A historian with the agency determined a set of unidentified remains at Ardennes American Cemetery could be Simon’s and they were disinterred and sent to the lab at Offutt Air Force Base in 2019. Scientists used dental and anthropological evidence, along with circumstantial evidence, to positively identify the remains, as well as DNA analysis.

A rosette will be placed with Simon’s name on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery. He will be buried in Wisconsin.

Tech Sgt. Frank C. Ferrel

Ferrel was assigned to the 328th Bombardment Squadron, 93rd Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force, according to the agency.

Ferrel was part of Operation Tidal Wave, the largest bombing mission against oil fields and refineries at Ploiesti, north of Bucharest, Romania. He was an engineer on a B-24 Liberator bomber that was hit by enemy fire and crashed.

Ferrel’s remains were not identified after the war and were buried as unknowns alongside dozens of others at two cemeteries in Belgium: Ardennes American Cemetery and Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery.

DPAA investigators began exhuming those remains in 2017, sending them to the laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base for identification. Scientists used anthropological and DNA analysis to positively identify Ferrel’s remains.

A rosette will be placed with Ferrel’s name on the Tablets of the Missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Italy. He will be buried in Texas.

Army Cpl. Carmen Carrillo was accounted for Feb. 3, 2023, and Army Master Sgt. Merritt L. Wynn on Aug. 26, 2022, according to separate releases from the the agnecy on March 1.

Wynn was a member of K Company, 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division in late 1950. He was reported missing in action on Nov. 26, 1951, after the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces attacked his unit’s position east of Unsan, North Korea, according to the agency. Wynn was awarded the Silver Star Medal for his leadership and bravery on that day.

In 2018, after the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea gave the U.S. 55 boxes believed to contain the remains of American service members killed during the Korean War. The remains were sent to the agency laboratory at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam for identification.

Investigators were able to identify Wynn’s remains from among those remains using dental, anthropological, and isotope analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence.

A rosette will be placed by Wynn’s name at the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. He will be buried in Centralia, Illinois, on a date that has not yet been set.

The agency did not indicate how it accounted for Carrillo, who was reported missing in action on May 17, 1951, after fighting the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces in Gangwon Hongchun, Republic of Korea. He was a member of Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division.

Carrillo was never recorded as a prisoner of war. His remains were determined not to be recoverable in January 1956.

Agency investigators conduct excavations and collect evidence at loss sites in South Korea every year. Since 1982, the agency has helped identify the remains of more than 450 Americans killed in the Korean War and return them to their families for burial with full military honors.