By Weng Xudong, Reuters.
The U.S. military has halted a military drill and grounded marine aircrafts in Djibouti following a pair of air mishaps this week, Reuters news agency reports.
According to the U.S. military in a statement, its Naval Forces Central Command made the cancel command in response to two air incidents in the same day in Djibouti.
On Tuesday, a U.S. Marine AV-8B Harrier jet crashed in Djibouti, followed by a CH-53 helicopter which suffered “structural damage” hours later.
The canceled drill called Alligator Dagger and the back-to-back aviation mishaps have raised increasing concerns about military readiness.
“We’re going to look at each one … I’m certainly not prepared to say that it’s a wave of mishaps or some form of crisis,” Marine Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, told a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.
