 Good afternoon. I'm General David Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps. I'm joined today by Lieutenant General Steve Rudder, the Commander of the U.S. Marine Corps of the Pacific. Lieutenant General Jody Osterman, the Commanding General of the First Marine Expeditionary Corps. Lieutenant General Carson Hechtel, who will soon take command of one mess. Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, Sergeant Major Black. Yesterday evening, an amphibious assault vehicle or AAD with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit suffered a mishap off the coast of Southern California with a vehicle to sink after taking it on the water. First, I'd like to thank everyone for their heartfelt condolences on behalf of our Marines, sailors, and family members affected by this tragic mishap. Let me add my own condolences and prayers to their and ask everyone to keep the families of these service members in their thoughts. There were 15 Marines and one sailor aboard the AAD at the time of the mishap. As of this afternoon, we found eight Marines. One Marine has died as a result of these injuries. Two Marines remain in critical condition and are in the care of civilian medical professionals at Scripps Memorial Hospital. Five of the eight Marines rescued are back aboard the AAD. We still have seven Marines and one sailor who remain missing. And search and rescue efforts are ongoing to find them. This mishap is under investigation. We will share the results of it once it is meet. Suspension of amphibious assault vehicle water operations until the causal factors of this mishap are better understood. All AADs across the fleet will be inspected. Again, I'd like to offer our most heartfelt thoughts and prayers to families of our Marines and sailors. I'll turn it over now to Lieutenant General Osterman, the commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. Good afternoon. As the combat I mentioned, I'm Lieutenant General Jody Osterman, the commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force. And first and foremost, I'd like to just acknowledge that our thoughts and prayers are with the families affected by these Marines that have been in this very tragic situation that is part of our family here at one level. The incident occurred just off of San Clemente Island. And it was part of our amphibious training that we do with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, of which these Marines and Sailors were held out. The operations there, as I said, were part of normal waterborne training. When the AADV began to take on water, they signaled to the rest of the unit that they were in fact taking on water. An immediate response was provided by two additional Amtrakts that were with them to aid two more amphibious assault vehicles, as well as the safety boat, which is always accompanied by water operations. And as the command I mentioned, we were able to rescue eight of the Marines there, and we will still continue to search operations in the SAR operations, if you will, for the other seven Marines. Again, our heartfelt thoughts occur throughout to the family members, and with that, I'll be ready to take any questions. I want to start each of you. Oh, sure. I want to know if they've actually expected the AADV or are diverting sent in. Can you talk a little bit more about how long the rescue will go versus recovery? Basically, the AADV, in that part of off of the islands there, for everybody to know, the water drops off very quickly. So the AADV is actually in several hundred feet of water. It's really below the depth that a diver can go to. So we're working, and I really owe an incredible gratitude and thanks to our Navy and our Coast Guard brethren who helped us in this endeavor. They're actually working with us to provide assets. We can basically get down to take a look at the AADV. And then we are continuing searching rescue operations at this point, rather than doing some of the operations. So that's basically... And just as a follow-up, sorry, but the assets, are you talking about maybe a remote control, something that can go down to check on the AADV? You know, I don't have the specifics. We told them, obviously, that we would like to be able to assess the situations. They have a lot of technical knowledge in that realm and are basically going to figure out what the best asset is. Erica? So how soon after the AADV came off of the summer set, did it start taking down the water? Did it immediately after coming off? Or was it, you know, moving along and then went down and began taking in water? Do you have any idea on that? They were basically completing training. They had already come ashore the day prior and had been conducting training operations ashore as well as it was. So they were actually on their way from the island back out to the ship. And I don't know the exact distances, but over a thousand meters offshore. General Hick, you mentioned the training, or the training kind of stand-down and inspection requirement. Can you talk a little bit about what prompted you to do that at this point on this first day and what's kind of involved in both of those aspects? Thank you. Kind of precaution before we understand what caused this. I'm pausing, we are pausing the water for the operations for interest. Once we determine what the cause was, then we'll make a second decision whether we can continue. But this is to ensure out of an abundance of caution that we take at the time, give the time to the recovery and find out what actually. Taken on water and sunk in the last decade, do we see any similarities, at least from the last two, 2017 and 2011? Wait till this investigation is done. I think all of you want the same thing, first to make sure the families are taken care of and that the search and rescue report that we want to do. Then after the investigation is done, we'll see as always if there are any trends, if there's any linkages. First step, conduct a search and rescue and take care of the families. That's what the focus is today. If I could also just to clarify, it's actually the last 25 years and we maintain an inventory of over 800 vehicles, eight amphibious assault vehicles, so just to put in context the two vehicles for the last 25 years. Thank you. Sure, for those who didn't hear the question, this was pertaining to the difficulty to egress the amphibious assault vehicles. The amphibious assault vehicles are built and the special occasions are they can hold 21 personnel in the back with up to 285 pounds a year each and then they have three crew members as well. This particular AAV had a total of 16 personnel on board, so it wasn't anywhere near the maximum number. From an egress perspective, just an awful lot of dynamics involved with that. With the personnel recovered, obviously some were able to egress but as the comment I mentioned until the investigation is completed, we won't know all the details of that part of it. Each AAV does have three watertight patches for the crew and then it has two very large tree patches in the back that come up and open. The vehicle itself weighs 26 tons, so with that, you know, when the water and the freeboard, it has a natural buoyancy to it obviously to be able to conduct operations depending on how much water, weight, things like that. It's kind of a relative decision about how much water. You mentioned the weight, can you talk a little bit about what the crew was carrying, how much weight, and what are they adding? Sure. The Marines were in their normal combat gear, so their body armor and the basic gear that they had with them, like I said, they had been sure of the day before. They all had the quotation as well, that's part of our equipment loadout because it's an inflatable vest that they wear with that. With the rescue operations, some of those Marines were picked up because of their clothing, so it's about all the detail I have on it. It would be more than a thousand meters, less than 2,000 meters from the beach, on the island, on the northwest. And also, the condition of the crew in here, have they been in hospital or how did they do it? Right now, I don't want to talk about specific medical conditions because of the privacy of the crew, but right now, they are both stable. Moved out of the intensive unit to... Go ahead. Can you talk about the conditions that night? I know today that we're strong, the moderate winds, choppy seas, what were the conditions around the time that it happened? I don't have the specifics of the conditions. I do know that in something I had asked the commander about the assessments, there's always a surf assessment or a wave action assessment that's done to make sure it's within the parameters for the AAVs, the excreta cyclones, or anything else. And it was within the parameters of a wave height to chop to... Can you talk about what assets you have currently right now assisting the search and recovery surface as well as airborne and other agencies like the Coast Guard is involved? And also, what support is being provided to both the crew aboard and the families, things like chaplains and other support? Right now, on station, we've got the U.S.S.SXS, a large deck amphibious ship, the Somerset, the San Diego, and we're also treated with the on station as well. She came over from a distant location at a very quick rate of high speed to get there in time. And then there's... Those are the surface vessels, Coast Guard, Clutter was also involved. And yesterday and today, we've had helicopters up to 24 hours a day, mostly associated with search and rescue, helicopters with sensors, Coast Guard helicopters as well as Navy helicopters and Marine Corps helicopters. And then kind of a surface perspective, the ARD-MU has 11-meter and flammable bridging arms. Basically, the adjacent AAVs watched it go down at 26, the assumption that it went all the way. You know, I don't have the exact details. We know precisely where it went down because the other units were literally right there with it. So they marked it the exact way where it is. Part of the search and rescue actually includes things like looking at the water currents, looking at the... Erica, Brad? How many other AAVs were with them when this happened? Anything to do with summer periods hanging? Summer periods. Summer periods. My understanding is there were a total of 13 antiracids. 13? 13. We have time for one more question. Can you tell me how old the AAV is if we know and how long it took to go down if it was before the time? The age of the AAV, we can move to that particular one. AAVs were originally procured in 1972 but they've gone through many what we call service life extension programs. So up at Barstow, they bring it in, they literally take it down to just the hall and rebuild everything inside of it. And with the age of that vehicle fleet, we've done that multiple times through the years to keep them safe. Some of the recent modifications include things like emergency lighting and those kinds of things. And then how long did they time how long it took to go down? You know, I don't know exactly. I do know that it was a very short time for the rescue to commence on that spot because it was very close to the adjacent AAVs but I don't have the investigation to bear out some of those details. One last question. Can you really tell us the difference between the oldest person in there with early 30s and the youngest ones facing this off the rank and the youngest Marines were I would just ask you to respect to understand the situation that the families are in and ask for your help there and giving them space right now. Both the families of those they recovered and the families who are waiting on news up there who are not yet accounted for please give them the space. You will get information as one map gets it. I'm just asking you to give them the distance put yourself in their shoes allow them to focus on their Marines and their sailors and then the rest of the interest will all come to you but sometimes in our eagerness to get information we lose sight of the priority. I know yours are the same. The priority right now those families, those Marines respect that. All the information will come as we can.