An accidental fall from a helicopter during a training exercise killed two members of the FBI's elite counterterrorism unit off the coast of Virginia Beach this month, the state medical examiner's office confirmed Wednesday.
LAW OFFICER: FBI: Agents Fell to Deaths Training off Virginia Coast
The cause of death for Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw was "blunt-force trauma due to a fall," according to Rob Robinson, a lead investigator with the office. It determined their fall was an accident.
The investigation confirmed information released by the FBI shortly after the May 17 incident.
In a statement, the FBI said the agents died while practicing how to quickly drop from a helicopter to a ship using ropes. The statement said the helicopter encountered unspecified difficulties and the agents fell to their deaths.
A law enforcement source told The Pilot the incident happened about 12 nautical miles off the coast while the helicopter was 75 to 90 feet above the water. The official blamed bad weather and said the agents – members of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team – fell into the water.
The Hostage Rescue Team, based in Quantico, is a domestic counterterrorism unit designed to handle hostage situations and criminal apprehensions. Among other things, team members are trained to rappel from helicopters, scuba dive and use explosives to break down doors and walls. The team can deploy within four hours to anywhere in the United States.
Last month, the team was involved in the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. To correct erroneous reports in other media, Special Agent Ann Todd, an FBI spokeswoman in Washington, said this week that Lorek and Shaw were not directly involved in the apprehension of Tsarnaev, nor even in Watertown, Mass., at the time of his arrest.
Todd also said a helicopter door that washed ashore the day after the incident did not come from the helicopter the agents were using to train.
"The door came from another FBI helicopter that was acting in a medevac capacity," Todd said. "While attempting to render medical aid to the injured agents aboard the helicopter, a crew member attempted to close the aircraft door. As he closed the door, it inadvertently slid forward off the rails and into the water."
