US names six crew killed in refuelling plane crash in Iraq
EPAThe US military has named all six crew members who were killed when their refuelling aircraft crashed in Iraq.
The Pentagon said those on board the KC-135 plane were: John Klinner, 33, from Alabama, 31-year-old Ariana Savino from Washington, Ashley Pruitt, 34, from Kentucky, 38-year-old Seth Koval from Indiana, and Ohio natives Curtis Angst, 30, and Tyler Simmons, 28.
The first three were US Air Force personnel, and the latter three served in the National Guard.
The US military previously said neither hostile nor friendly fire were involved in the loss of the plane, which had been involved in US operations against Iran.
Steven Nordhaus / XThe aircraft had been on a combat mission when it went down over western Iraq and was one of two planes involved in the incident. The second landed safely.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hailed the aircraft's crew members as "American heroes".
US officials told CBS News, the BBC's US partner, that the incident may have involved a midair collision, but said they were still investigating the cause of the crash.
US Central Command, which is responsible for operations in the Middle East region, earlier described the crash as happening over friendly airspace.
An Iraqi intelligence source told CBS the first plane went down near Turaibil, located on the Iraqi-Jordanian border.
Pro-Iranian militias operate in western Iraq. Iran's military claimed on state TV that an allied group had targeted the plane with a missile.
Thursday's crash brings the official US military death toll in the US-Israel war with Iran, which began a fortnight ago, to 13. Six more soldiers have been killed in Kuwait and another in Saudi Arabia.
To date, the US military has lost at least four aircraft during the war, which began with US and Israeli launching air strikes on Iran, including one that killed its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In early March, three F-15 fighter jets were shot down in "an apparent friendly fire incident" over Kuwait, officials said. All six crew members were able to safely eject.
Boeing manufactured the KC-135 Stratotanker for the US military in the 1950s and early 1960s.
It has been a backbone to the US military's air refuelling fleet, and allows combat aircraft to carry out longer missions without needing to land.
