The U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday identified Ensign Morgan Garrett as one of two service members killed in a training flight accident in Alabama on Friday.
Garrett, a 2019 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, died when her two-seat T-6B Texan II crashed Friday in Foley, Alabama. Military Times reported Garrett had been identified in a message to cadets and family members shared by Coast Guard Academy Superintendent Rear Adm. Bill Kelly.
“On behalf of the Coast Guard Academy I offer my sincerest condolences to her family, friends, classmates and shipmates,” Kelly wrote to the “CGA Community.” “She was a beloved member of the Class of 2019, was a leader of Echo Company and the Corps, and was outstanding as the Regimental Activities Officer. … She left an indelible mark on her classmates and the entire community, and she will be sorely missed by all.”
As a member of the Coast Guard Academy, Garrett was a regimental activities officer and competed as a middle-distance runner in track and field. Garrett majored in marine and environmental sciences. Military.com reported Garrett made the athletic director’s and commandant of cadet’s list every semester. Garrett, a native of Waxhaw, North Carolina, attended Weddington High School and was a member of the school’s National Honor Society and captain of her track and cross-country teams. She finished sixth in the state in 2015 in the 4 x 800 relay.
In an April 2019 message to fellow Coast Guard Academy students prior to graduating, Garrett gave advice to her fellow students on how to be successful.
“Always seek out the next thing you can be doing to improve yourself, the people around you, and your unit as a whole because there is nothing good growing in stagnant water,” Garrett wrote at the time.
The other service member killed in the Friday crash has not been identified but was described as an instructor pilot.
The crash reportedly resulted in damage to two cars and a house, but no civilians were reported injured.
The Friday crash was the Navy’s first aviation-related death in more than a year.
The trainer plane crash occurred just three days after a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet crashed near Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, California. The pilot in that case was able to safely eject and was briefly hospitalized before being released that same day.
