Austin noted, in addition to praising the victims, that search and rescue efforts are still ongoing, and the circumstances of the disaster have not been reliably clarified.
According to specialized resources, the disaster occurred approximately 50 miles southeast of the island of Cyprus. It is in this area that work is now being carried out to search and recover debris.
100% without a doubt the actual reason is two dumbasses "horsing around" and their NCO, or whoever, wrote it up as a faulty part or something.
I can easily see two early 20 somethings fighting over a can of Skoal with only one dip left in it and one finally gets the can and the other guy shoves him and he hits a window which pops out. The pilot is probably screaming "what the fuck?!" at them because he thinks he's gonna lose his ability to fly. And their NCO calls them both dipshits and tells them they'll be on extra duty cleaning floors for a week but he'll take care of the BS on the backend with a report.
Their commander sees the report, leans back in his chair and taps the paper like "ahh! I remember those days!"
The DoD pays out some compensation and everyone moves on.
Because we are such nice obedient dogs to the US, we didn't even get that much. Just a "sincere apology" for dropping helicopter parts on elementary school students.
When a marine murdered a local, all that happened was a temporary ban on occupying military being allowed to drink alcohol. Which didn't work anyway.
Damn. If you're unlucky enough to have some crazy shit like that happen where clearly the military is at fault I feel like you gotta at least get some sort of small settlement. Like a "we'll pay for the medical bills related to injuries for life and here's $100K to say sorry and also to not talk about this in the media" or something. I actually don't know how common payouts from the DoD to completely unrelated bystander citizens is. I have to imagine they make payments somewhat frequently though just because the DoD budget is an infinite pit and it's easy to pay people and they won't talk shit.
This is so real man.