By. Scott Jackson
On Wednesday night, September 17,2025, a helicopter crashed near the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.
“Joint Base Lewis-McChord confirms that a helicopter crashed on the evening of Sept. 17 in a rural area near the installation,” said Scot Keith, JBLM Garrison Public Affairs Officer. “The incident occurred at approximately 9 p.m.PDT. This remains a developing situation, and no additional details are available at this time.”
Civilian and military search and rescue crews responded to an area around Summit Lake, about 35 miles west of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near to where the military said they lost contact with their helicopter and.
“Deputies have located what is believed to be the scene. We have been advised that the military lost contact with a helicopter in the area, and we are working closely with JBLM to deploy any resources needed to assist.” wrote the Thurston County Sheriff’s Department on its Facebook page.
Later on Wednesday night, in a separate post, the sheriff said that deputies that had first responded and found the crash site had to stop rescue efforts because of the heat from the scene melting their shoes.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is a combined Army/Airforce base about 10 miles south of Tacoma. The 16th Combat Aviation Brigade operates out of Gray Army Airfield on the south end of the base. The unit is part of the 7th Infantry Division and I Corps, both of which have their headquarters at the base. While we don’t for sure know what kind of helicopter crashed. We know that the brigade flies the AH-64E Apache, CH-47 Chinook, and UH-60 Black Hawk. Civilians in the comment section of the sheriff’s department’s facebook post mentioned that at the stated time of the crash, that they had seen either a Blackhawk or an Apache.
This is an ongoing situation still however it’s not looking good for the crew. The crash is the suspected cause of a several acre fire that the rescue crews had to battle.
New information received as I was finishing this article reveal that the helicopter involved was a
MH-60M “Black Hawk”with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), also known as the Night Stalkers. The Night Stalkers are some of the best of the best in helicopter aviation and are the guys called when the Seal Teams or Delta or any of those black ops guys need a lift. If this wasn’t a mechanical issue it could probably be attributed to the type of flying required by these guys. Low flying at high speeds comes to mind when I think of the kind of training being done by these guys, so as sad as it is, these things are bound to happen sometimes. People often forget about how dangerous training can be even when carried out far away from a battleground.
Global Conflict Reporting 
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