By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to pay his respects on Wednesday at a Delaware military base when the remains of six U.S. service members killed in the crash of a refueling aircraft are returned to their families.
It will be the second time since launching the war on Iran on Feb. 28 that the Republican president will attend the solemn military ritual known as a dignified transfer, which he once described as the “toughest thing” he has had to do as commander in chief.
All six crew members of a KC-135 Air Force refueling aircraft were killed last week in a plane crash over friendly territory in western Iraq while supporting operations against Iran. They were from Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Washington state.
The crash brought the U.S. death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members. About 200 U.S. service members have been injured, including 10 severely, the Pentagon has said.
Trump last traveled to Dover Air Force Base on March 7 for the dignified transfer of six U.S. service members who were killed by a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait. He saluted as flag-draped transfer cases containing the remains of the fallen service members were carried from military aircraft to vehicles waiting to take them to the base’s mortuary facility to prepare them for their final resting place.
“It’s the bad part of war,” he told reporters afterward. Asked then if he worried about having to make multiple trips to the base for additional dignified transfers as the war continued, he said, “I’m sure. I hate to do it, but it’s a part of war, isn’t it?”
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said that the crash followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace” over Iraq but that the loss of the aircraft during a combat mission was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.” The circumstances were under investigation. The other plane landed safely.
The crash killed three people assigned to the 6th Air Refueling Wing at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida: Maj. John A. “Alex” Klinner, 33, who served in Birmingham, Alabama; Capt. Ariana Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; and Tech. Sgt. Ashley Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky.
The three others were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio: Capt. Seth Koval, 38, a resident of Stoutsville, Ohio, who was from Mooresville, Indiana; Capt. Curtis Angst, 30, who lived in Columbus; and Master Sgt. Tyler Simmons, 28, of Columbus.