Three US Army soldiers were found dead in Lithuania on March 31, 2025, after crews recovered the armored vehicle in which four soldiers had gone missing during a training exercise. Search and recovery teams continued looking for the fourth service member.
The soldiers were assigned to the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. They and their M88 Hercules tracked recovery vehicle had been reported missing early on the previous Tuesday at the Pabradė training area in eastern Lithuania, about 10 kilometers from the border with Belarus. Searchers located the vehicle the next day, submerged in roughly five meters of water in marshy ground.
Extracting it required a sustained multinational effort. Divers attached cables to the M88, which was lying on its side and weighed nearly 70 tons before the added resistance of mud. Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said the final pull began at 2:45 a.m. and ended at 4:30 a.m. Two other M88 vehicles performed the extraction, with two bulldozers used as anchors after the initial arrangement proved insufficient.
Hundreds of Lithuanian and foreign troops, police, engineers, divers and other rescue personnel participated. Several dozen Polish troops brought specialized equipment. The Lithuanian military and police worked alongside US forces throughout the operation, which continued for six days from the soldiers' disappearance.
Later on March 31, US Army Europe and Africa confirmed that three soldiers had been recovered dead and said operations continued for the remaining service member. Their identities were withheld while relatives were notified. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda expressed condolences and said the effort would continue until the fourth soldier was found.
The vehicle had been located on Wednesday, but mud, depth and its position delayed removal until Monday morning. Recovery of the vehicle did not immediately explain the incident. Lithuanian military police and US investigators remained at the scene, and Lithuanian prosecutors opened a pre-trial investigation to determine the cause of death. The supplied accounts do not describe a finding about how the vehicle entered the swamp or what happened to its crew.
The episode occurred during a US-led exercise in a country that hosts more than 1,000 American troops on a rotating basis. Lithuania is a member of NATO and the European Union, and the training ground's proximity to Belarus gives the allied presence wider security significance. That geopolitical context does not bear on the accident's cause.
As of the March 31 event date, the complex vehicle extraction was complete, three deaths were confirmed, and the fate of one soldier remained unknown. Investigators were only beginning the work of establishing the sequence that led the M88 into the marsh.
