Marine Corps officials identified the Marine killed this week in a tactical vehicle rollover at Camp Pendleton.
The Marine, Sgt. Matthew Bylski, 23, was killed around 6 p.m. Tuesday when the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) he was riding in crashed performing "ground movement," the Marines said in a statement. Bylski was killed and 14 other Marines in the vehicle when it rolled over were sent to area hospitals for evaluation and with undisclosed injuries.
As of Thursday morning, one Marine remains in the hospital, the Marines said.
Bylski, from Royal Oak, Michigan, joined the Marines in 2019. In his nearly 5 years in the Corps he earned two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals.
He was assigned to Battalion Landing Team 1/5 and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Col. Sean Dynan, commanding officer of the 15th MEU, said Bylski was an outstanding Marine and leader.
"Words fail to express our sorrow at the tragic loss of Sgt. Bylski; an outstanding Marine and leader within his platoon," Dynan said in a statement Thursday. "The MEU — the Marines who lived, trained and learned from Sgt. Bylski — mourn alongside his family and friends."
Marine ACVs are new to the Corps and are set to replace the Vietnam War-era Assault Amphibious Vehicles. The new vehicles have had issues, including a 2022 incident in the Camp Pendleton surf in which two ACVs floundered just off a beach. One of them rolled over.
Tactical vehicle rollovers outside of combat have killed more than 125 troops across the military since 2010, according to numbers cited in a 2021 Government Accountability Office report on the issue.
Two Air Force airmen were killed in two separate rollovers — in September and October — involving another tactical vehicle, the Humvee.
In 2019, Marine 1st Lt. Conor McDowell was killed in a light armored vehicle rollover on Camp Pendleton when it came upon an unknown washout not visible in the high grass surrounding it.
His father, Michael McDowell, told KPBS Thursday he's frustrated troops are dying in accidents he says are preventable.
"When I heard about it yesterday I thought 'here we go again,'" said McDowell, a fellow at the New America Foundation where he focuses on the issue of military tactical vehicle safety.
"This continues to happen and it should not be happening," he said.
McDowell and his wife now work to support families of other service members killed in rollovers.
More troops are killed in non-combat related vehicle accidents than in combat, McDowell said, something he says in unacceptable.
The Marines haven't released more details about the crash and it remains under investigation.
The findings of that investigation are unlikely to be released for months, McDowell said, but he has a lot of questions about the circumstances.
"Was this a case of range inspection not identifying a dangerous hazard (that) could have been avoided?" McDowell said. "Was it driver error? We won't know but very often there's a blame down the ranks attitude amongst flag officers and it's got to stop. These kids are being killed in their own country, not on the battlefield."
Adoption of the ACV by the Marine Corps became a priority after eight Marines and a sailor were killed in July 2020 when their AAV sank while returning to a ship from training on San Clemente Island.
