Black Hawk crash pilots called skilled

NEW ORLEANS — Members of a Louisiana-based National Guard crew who died last week in a helicopter crash off the Florida coast had done tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and participated in humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and in response to the 2010 BP oil spill, military officials said Monday.

The Louisiana National Guard identified the pilots and crew of a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed March 10 in the Santa Rosa Sound along Florida’s panhandle in a nighttime training exercise in dense fog with seven elite Marines aboard. All 11 in the Black Hawk died.

Piloting the helicopter were Chief Warrant Officer George Wayne Griffin Jr. of Delhi, 37, and Chief Warrant Officer George David Strother of Alexandria, 44.

Also killed were Staff Sgt. Lance Bergeron, 40, of Thibodaux and Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich of Fairfax, Va.

Officials earlier identified the Marines as Capt. Stanford Henry Shaw III of Basking Ridge, N.J.; Master Sgt. Thomas Saunders of Williamsburg, Va.; Staff Sgt. Liam Flynn of Queens, N.Y.; Staff Sgt. Trevor P. Blaylock of Lake Orion, Mich.; Staff Sgt. Kerry Michael Kemp of Port Washington, Wis.; Staff Sgt. Andrew Seif of Holland, Mich.; and Staff Sgt. Marcus Bawol from Warren, Mich.