Orange County soldier identified as 1 of the 3 people killed in helicopter crash
News 12 Staff
Updated on:Jan 22, 2021, 5:42pm EST
A solider from Orange County was among the three people killed in a military helicopter crash Wednesday, according to the National Guard.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Prial, from Warwick, was killed along with Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Skoda and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian Koch.
Military officials say the three soldiers belonged to a medical evacuation unit whose mission is to pick up casualties on the battlefield and transport them to military medical facilities.
According to military officials, the UH-60 Black Hawk medical evacuation helicopter flew out of the Army Aviation Support Facility at Rochester International Airport Wednesday night.
National Guard identifies 3 servicemen killed in helicopter crash
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Skoda
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian Koch
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Prial
(WBNG) The National Guard has released the names of the three service members that were killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday night just outside of Rochester, N.Y. in the town of Mendon.
They are Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Skoda, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian Koch, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Prial.
Their UH-60 helicopter crashed during a routine training missing.
Here is some information about the servicemen that were killed, provided by the National Guard.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Skoda was a 35-year veteran of the army and the New York Army National Guard. He was in the army from 1985 to 87 and joined the National Guard in 1987.
By CAITLIN M. KENNEY | STARS AND STRIPES Published: January 21, 2021
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See other free reports here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription. WASHINGTON Two more service members have died from the coronavirus, bringing the number of deaths to 17 as military cases surpass 130,000, according to the Pentagon. Petty Officer 2nd Class Abdigafar Salad Warsame, 52, was a Navy Reserve logistics specialist assigned to Navy Operational Support Center in Columbus, Ohio, when he died Jan. 8 at a local hospital due to complications associated with the coronavirus, Cmdr. Ben Tisdale, a Navy Reserve Force spokesman, said in a statement Thursday.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Authorities have identified the three soldiers killed Wednesday night when the military helicopter they were flying crashed in a Mendon field.
Killed were National Guard soldiers Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Skoda, Chief Warrant Officer 4 Christian Koch and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Daniel Prial, according to Col. Richard Goldenberg, public affairs officer for the New York National Guard. These soldiers were a part of our National Guard family and we mourn their loss, alongside their family members and loved ones, he said in a news release Friday morning.
The New York Army National Guard UH-60 medical evacuation helicopter crashed while on a routine training mission just after 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. It was not immediately known what caused the crash.