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- Five US soldiers, along with two foreign servicemen, were killed when a helicopter assigned to an international peacekeeping force crashed off the coast of Egypt.
- President-elect Joe Biden posted a statement on Twitter to offer “his sincere condolences to the relatives of the peacekeepers.”
- President Donald Trump, on the other hand, appears to have said nothing about Thursday afternoon’s crash yet and has instead focused on criticism of Fox News and complaints about the election he lost.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Five U.S. service members were killed when their helicopter crashed Thursday. President-elect Joe Biden has expressed his condolences. President Donald Trump, for his part, complained to Fox News.
A helicopter assigned to the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) crashed near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, killing seven people, including a French soldier and a Czech.
A member of the US service survived and was medically evacuated.
An earlier MFO report said six Americans were killed in the incident, which is why some published statements on the matter point to six American deaths. This count was revised by MFO on Thursday afternoon.
Hours after the crash was announced, Trump was furiously retweeting people criticizing Fox News. He then tweeted his own criticism of the Conservative Network.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2020
This tweet was followed by an allegation of electoral fraud, a theme common to many recent tweets from the president following Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
As when it was written on Thursday afternoon, Insider couldn’t find a public statement from the president on the tragedy hours before.
Biden, whose son Beau Biden served in the National Guard and deployed to Iraq before dying of brain cancer, expressed his condolences in a short statement on Twitter.
—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 12, 2020
In the aftermath of the crash, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who replaced Mark Esper after being sacked by the president on Monday, released a statement on the tragic crash.
“The Department of Defense is deeply saddened by the loss of six service members from the United States and two partner nations in a helicopter crash in the Sinai Peninsula operating with the United Nations Multinational Force and observers (MFO ), “Miller said in a statement released ahead of the casualty count update.
“Yesterday we recognized the sacrifice of millions of American veterans who have defended our nation for generations, and today we tragically remember the last full measure our warriors in uniform can pay for their service,” did he declare. “I extend the Department’s condolences to the families, friends and teammates of these servicemen.”
The MFO, which enforces a 40-year-old peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, is currently investigating the cause of the crash, although a mechanical failure is believed to be to blame.
Update: This post has been updated. A previous version of this article incorrectly reported the death toll in the crash due to an erroneous MFO statement. The latest MFO press release reports that five US soldiers were killed in the crash.
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