Military authorities announced Wednesday they have found the body of the second American soldier who disappeared during training operations in Morocco, bringing closure to an extensive international search mission that utilized advanced technology and over 1,000 personnel.
The recovered service member has been identified as Spc. Mariyah Symone Collington, a 19-year-old from Taveres, Florida, according to U.S. military Europe and Africa officials.
“Royal Moroccan Armed Forces transported the Soldier’s remains by a Moroccan helicopter to the morgue of Moulay El Hassan Military Hospital in Guelmim, Morocco,” the statement said.
Collington worked as an air and missile defense crewmember with Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, military officials reported.
The young soldier joined the Regular Army’s Delayed Entry Program in 2023 and started active duty in 2024. She finished Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma as a 14P air and missile defense crewmember. In February 2025, she was assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment in Ansbach, Germany, and received promotion to specialist on May 1, 2026.
She received the Army Service Ribbon among her military honors.
This discovery follows the earlier recovery of 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., a 14A Air Defense Artillery officer. Both soldiers tragically fell from a cliff while hiking during their free time in Morocco. Their bodies are being returned to the United States.
A spokesperson for U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa confirmed to The Associated Press that officials continue investigating what led to the fatal incident.
Both soldiers were reported missing on May 2 following their participation in African Lion, a yearly multinational training exercise conducted in Morocco. Their disappearance launched a comprehensive search involving more than 1,000 American and Moroccan military and civilian personnel, the SETAF-AF spokesperson confirmed.
The search operation deployed sophisticated equipment including a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, unmanned aerial systems, thermal and ISR sensors, an unmanned underwater vehicle, side-scan sonar, a Moroccan multibeam echosounder and U.S. Coast Guard drift modeling capabilities, the spokesperson detailed.
African Lion 26 is a U.S.-directed exercise that began in April spanning four nations – Morocco, Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal – involving more than 7,000 personnel from over 30 countries.
In 2012, two U.S. Marines died and two others sustained injuries in a helicopter crash in Morocco’s southern city of Agadir during the same exercises.
