The US Army announced today, Sunday, the suspension of the search for 7 Marines and a member of the Marine Forces who had been missing at sea for several days, and considered them among the dead.
The military was on board an amphibious vehicle that sank Thursday in deep waters off the coast of California during training.
According to a Marines statement, the helicopters of the Marine Corps, the Navy and the Coast Guard, over a period of 40 hours, combed more than a thousand nautical miles without success.
"I have decided with regret the end of the search and rescue efforts," said Colonel Christopher Bronze, commander of the 15th Infantry Division in the Navy, and turned the search and rescue operation into a search for the bodies of the missing elements.
Earlier, the navy said that 7 other Marines were rescued, while a soldier was killed in the accident.
The accident took place during a routine training of the 15th Infantry Unit in the San Clemente Island area in the Pacific Ocean, about 65 miles (105 km) west of San Diego.
The vehicle, which was more than a thousand meters from the northwest coast of the island, reported that the water had leaked to it, but the rescue did not reach it at the appropriate time.
The vehicle sank in an area hundreds of meters deep, and the army said it was at a depth that divers could not reach.
The amphibious vehicle weighs 26 tons and is armed and designed to transport forces from ship to land. At the time of the accident, it was heading to a ship from the island that the army exclusively uses in its training.