Marines pause operations after series of ‘avoidable’ deaths, aircraft crashes

Reporting from washington —  Disturbed by a series of U.S. Marine aircraft crashes, deaths and incidents of bad behavior, the commandant of the Marine Corps has ordered a one-day pause in operations for the service to regroup, look inward and find ways to improve.

Gen. Robert Neller, in a memo to his commanders, said that more than 140 Marines died this year, and only one was in combat.

“We are seeing too many training accidents and we have a small but not insignificant number of individuals that continue to exhibit destructive behavior,” Neller said in the memo obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press.

Pointing to incidents of sexual assault, hazing and alcohol abuse, Neller said, “It is time for us to take a look inward.”

He ordered commanders to conduct a one-day stand-down for professional development between now and Dec. 1 for active-duty Marines, and gave reserve units until February. In a more broadly distributed message to his entire force, Neller said that while Marines are performing excellently in combat and in response to other disasters, some are stumbling at home.

“In our pre-deployment training and garrison activities, we are falling short,” he said in the message sent out Tuesday. “We are losing too many Marines to avoidable death and injury. We have a culture of combat excellence, but we have to guard against complacency and a lack of focus at home station.”

The order comes on the heels of a string of crashes and other incidents, including the nighttime collision of two CH-53E transport helicopters off the coast of Oahu in January that killed 12 Marines. The Corps blamed pilot error compounded by low aircraft readiness and a lack of focus on basic aviation practices.

A Marine Harrier jet crashed in September off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, and an F/A-18 Hornet crashed in the California desert a month later. In both accidents, the pilots ejected safely.

The incidents of bad behavior include the deaths of two Marine recruits at Parris Island in South Carolina over the past eight months, triggering investigations into widespread hazing and abuse.