Tyler Simmons, an airman with the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, died when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — One of the six crew members aboard a U.S. aircraft that crashed while supporting operations against Iran was a Columbus high school graduate, according to his family.
Tyler Simmons, an airman with the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, died when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday. Five other crew members died in the crash.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said the crash followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace” and that the other plane landed safely.
Columbus City Schools said Simmons attended Eastmoor Academy High School where he played football and was part of the 2015 class.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday morning that the crash occurred “over friendly territory in western Iraq, while the crew was on a combat mission” and reiterated that hostile or friendly fire was not the cause.
The crash brings the U.S. death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members, with the seven others killed in combat. About 140 U.S. service members have been injured, including eight severely, the Pentagon said earlier this week.
The KC-135 has been in service for more than 60 years and has been involved in several fatal accidents, most recently in 2013.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the crew heroes.
“War is hell. War is chaos,” Hegseth said. “And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them.”
Central Command said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”