5:10 P.M
A spokesman at a Florida Air Force base near where a helicopter crashed says crews are still in search-and-rescue mode even though a Pentagon official has said the 11 military members aboard are presumed dead.
Eglin Air Force Base spokesman Mike Spaits says the search will continue throughout the night. "There is always room for optimism," he said. "The fog has been hampering our search efforts, and more fog is continuing to roll in."
Human remains and small pieces of wreckage from the helicopter have washed ashore.
4:40 P.M.
The head of the Louisiana National Guard says two helicopters were on a training mission off the coast of Florida when one turned back because of bad weather and the other crashed.
"One of them started to take off and then realized there was a weather condition and turned around and came back," said Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.
There was dense fog in the area at the time.
Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana Guard said later it was unclear exactly when the decision to turn back was made, or whether that was communicated to the crew in the helicopter that crashed.
4:15 P.M
The head of the Louisiana National Guard says the crew of a helicopter that crashed off the coast of Florida had a lot of experience, serving in Iraq and helping humanitarian missions after Hurricane Katrina and the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard, said Wednesday the crew also helped after hurricanes Rita and Isaac. The helicopter had four Guardsmen from Louisiana on board along with seven Marines from North Carolina. They are presumed dead.
Like the Army's Green Berets and the Navy's SEALs, these Marines were highly skilled unconventional warriors, trained to endure grueling conditions and sensitive assignments on land and at sea, from seizing ships to special reconnaissance missions and direct action inside hostile territory.
The helicopter was part of a nighttime training mission Tuesday at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. There was dense fog in the area at the time of the crash but officials have not said what caused the helicopter to go down.
2:30 P.M.
Crews searching for a military helicopter that crashed just off the Florida coast have taken to the air now that the fog is beginning to lift.
A helicopter was flying low over the Santa Rosa Sound on Wednesday afternoon, looking for any sign of the helicopter that crashed or any of the 11 Marines and soldiers that were aboard when it went down.
Human remains and pieces of wreckage have washed ashore. The military members are presumed dead.
The dense fog has hampered the search. It was also foggy when the helicopter disappeared Tuesday night, but it's not clear if the weather had anything to do with the crash.
2 P.M.
A military spokesman says the 11 Marines and soldiers involved in a helicopter crash in Florida were using boats and choppers to practice reaching and leaving a target site.
Capt. Barry Morris is a spokesman for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He says the troops involved with the exercise had been in the Florida Panhandle since Sunday and were scheduled to stay through this Sunday. He says they were doing what the military calls insertion and extraction missions.
Human remains washed ashore in heavy fog Wednesday after seven Marines and four soldiers were believed to be killed in the Army helicopter crash.
Human remains washed ashore in heavy fog Wednesday after seven Marines and four soldiers were believed to be killed in the Army helicopter crash during a night-time training mission in Florida.
