WASHINGTON — Alexia and Bart Collart were preparing for a tough visit. Marines came to their home in Arlington, Virginia, last week to inform them of the cause of the Osprey crash in Australia last year it resulted in the deaths of their son and two other Marines.
But they didn’t expect to hear these words: Your son did not die in the crash.
Cpl. Spencer R. Collart had escaped safely from the plane. But the 21-year-old saw that the two Osprey pilots were missing. Despite the smoke and flames, he went back inside.
Collart “heroically returned to the burning cockpit of the aircraft in an attempt to rescue the trapped pilots,” the Marine Corps official statement said. research found in the crash. “He died during this effort.”
For his bravery, Collart will posthumously receive the service’s highest non-combat award, the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. It is an honor given for acts of heroism that put a soldier’s life at great risk.
His father was not surprised that Spencer tried to save the pilots.
“I heard a song the other day. I’ve heard it a lot,” Bart Collart said. “There was a quote in there about how ‘the last thing on my mind was leaving you.’ And I think Spencer was talking to me a little bit. He had no intention of leaving us. I think he thought he was going to go in there and get the job done.”
Spencer Collart was a focused, 6-foot-3, smiling lacrosse player at Washington-Liberty High School who walked into the house on his 18th birthday with a surprise: He had just enlisted.
“The Marines are the top of the top. The best of the best,” Spencer told his mother, Alexia Collart, when she asked him why. The Collarts weren’t a military family, but Spencer wanted to serve. And he wanted to fly.
He got his top assignment and met his two best friends, Lance Cpl. Evan Strickland and Cpl. Jonah Waser. They spent a year together training to become crew chiefs, Marines in charge of the plane and its passengers. There is a photo of them posing with their class on April 22, 2022, the day they received their wings.
They flew the V-22 Osprey, which was used as both a airplane and a helicopterBut it is an aircraft with a troubled history and four fatal accidents in two years.
In June 2022, Strickland was killed along with four other Marines in a training crash in california. Collart served as a pallbearer. He stayed in close contact with Strickland’s family, calling to check on them, FaceTimed them on the anniversary of the crash and reading the accident investigation report cover to cover, said Strickland’s mother, Michelle.
“He really wanted to understand,” she said.
When Spencer’s unit was deployed to Australia in April 2023, he asked his mother if he could give Michelle Strickland her number so they could text each other.
“He had the prospect of putting me in touch with Michelle. I don’t know if he was concerned or worried. I suspect he might have been,” Alexia Collart said.
Still, Spencer thrived in his role. He took on tough jobs that no one wanted, like packing up the unit’s aircraft before they deployed. His squadron kept arriving with more gear, so he kept unpacking and repacking it, over and over again.
By the fourth attempt, Spencer was “red and black, just covered in grease and suntan,” his commander told Bart Collart. Spencer earned a first-class ticket to Australia for his efforts.
In the Osprey, Spencer spent most of the flight in the “tunnel,” the area directly behind the pilot and co-pilot, learning from them, with the goal of becoming a pilot himself. When Spencer’s personal effects arrived after his death, Bart Collart found his son’s Marine Corps camouflage cap, known as a cover. He put it on, metal pressing against his forehead.
Spencer had a gold 2nd lieutenant’s “butter bar” and a set of pilot’s wings pinned to the ribbon.
“He put them here to remind himself every time he puts his cap on of his next goal,” Bart Collart said. “He was all in. He walked the walk, he talked the talk, and he was just, he just loved it so much.”
On August 27, 2023, two Marines stood in front of the Collart door.
Spencer Collart’s Osprey crashed during an Australian military exercise, killing him, Capt. Eleanor LeBeau and aircraft commander Maj. Tobin Lewis. For months, that was all his parents knew. Then, last week, the Marines returned to discuss their findings.
Seconds after the Osprey hit the ground, the plane filled with smoke and flames. Collart stood in the tunnel as the plane went down. Most of the 23 troops on board escaped through the back, including a commander who told investigators he saw Collart escape through a side door.
A team on the scene later found Collart’s belt – which he used to attach himself to the Osprey to allow him to move during the flight – undamaged outside the aircraft.
But not everyone made it. The pilots were still inside. The Osprey had crashed nose first and they were trapped.
Collart went back. Investigators believe he may have released Lewis from his restraints before he succumbed.
Collart “thought the world” of Lewis and LeBeau, Bart Collart said. He believes Lewis’ last-minute maneuver to level the plane as it crashed right side down helped the troops in the back survive.
The fourth member of the crew, Cpl. Travis Reyes, has been at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio for the past year recovering from serious injuries. Saturday was the first time he was allowed to fly home, to his parents’ house in Maryland.
Spencer’s family met Waser for the first time at the funeral. This time, it was Waser who donned a black-tie gown to serve as a pallbearer, escorting his best friend’s remains from Dover Air Force Base to Arlington National Cemetery.
Spencer’s younger sister, Gwyneth Collart, felt the chemistry right away. Her parents saw it too.
“When I met him, I thought, This is not the time or the place to fall in love,” Gwyneth Collart said of Waser. “Grieving is never going to be easy, but he made grieving a little bit more comfortable to do. And he, I mean, he took my breath away.”
Months later, Waser asked her father for Gwyneth’s hand in marriage.
“You told me Marines work fast, and you weren’t kidding,” Bart Collart said with a laugh.
Gwyneth Collart and Waser were married on July 6 in Arlington and held their reception at Top of the Town, a ballroom with a terrace overlooking Arlington National Cemetery. They were able to see the section where Spencer was buried, and Gwyneth pinned her brother’s portrait to her bouquet.
“I think Spencer knew what me and my family needed after all of this, and I feel like I got exactly what I needed to get through this,” said Gwyneth Collart.