Four crew members on a Black Hawk helicopter that crashed Thursday in southern Afghanistan were Hawaii-based, a unit from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade at Wheeler Army Airfield confirmed a day after the crash.
The brigade "is mourning the loss of four fallen comrades" from Task Force Diamond Head, A Company, the 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment who died in the crash in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province, said the family readiness group for another Hawaii-based aviation unit, Echo Troop of the 2nd Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment, on its Facebook page Friday.
"The affected families have been properly notified, and our rear detachment, family readiness groups, and care response teams are working to ensure their needs are being met," the Facebook post said.
The Family Support Center at Wheeler would have a chaplain and counselors on hand to help with questions or grief, the family readiness group said.
Seven Americans, including the helicopter crew, two Navy SEALs and a Navy explosives expert, along with three members of the Afghan national security forces and an Afghan civilian interpreter, were killed when the Black Hawk went down, according to reports out of Afghanistan.
The Black Hawk was operating in support of an ongoing assault on the ground, but initial indications were that it was not shot down, The Associated Press said.
About 2,600 Schofield Barracks soldiers with the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade are on a yearlong deployment to southern Afghanistan.
The Pentagon has not yet identified those aboard the Black Hawk, but one of the Hawaii-based crew members who died was 23-year-old Richard Essex, a door gunner and "wheeled vehicle mechanic" from Kelseyville, Calif., said his aunt Mayme Dyslin.
"It’s a big shock," Dyslin said. "We kind of knew when we hadn’t heard from him on Thursday morning."
Essex would always contact someone in the family to let them know he was all right when something bad happened in Afghanistan, she said.
"We were just hoping that he wasn’t one of the soldiers on the helicopter when we heard it on the news," Dyslin said.
On Essex’s Facebook page are seven photos he took in Afghanistan at what’s known as a "combat memorial" for four other Hawaii-based Black Hawk crew members — also from the 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment — who died in a crash in southern Afghanistan on April 19.
Essex and the other crew members who perished will be similarly remembered with photos and upturned rifles topped by helmets.
The California man, who was single, died doing what he loved, being an Army helicopter crew member, his aunt said.
"He wanted to be on the helicopter. His whole goal was to try and get on helicopters to be a gunner," she said. On a previous deployment to Afghanistan, he had been a mechanic.
Her nephew, a bass guitar player and published poet, joined the Army during his junior year in high school and left for boot camp the Monday after he graduated, she said.
"He’d only been in Hawaii maybe a year and a half (before he deployed)," Dyslin said. "He loved it there."
"He was actually on his first tour in Afghanistan when he found out he was going to Hawaii, and he was excited because he knew it was his opportunity to train to be a (helicopter) gunner," she said.
Dyslin talked to Essex on Tuesday, and "he was in good spirits," she said. "He was supposed to be coming home in November, and he was excited about coming home."
His parents, Marion and Brett Hopkins, will fly to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware today to meet their son’s body. The Army provided little information about what caused the helicopter to crash, Dyslin said.
"They didn’t say it was shot down or anything; they just said it had crashed and that they (all onboard) had passed away. I know that the Afghanistan rebels are taking responsibility for it, but the U.S. Army didn’t confirm that to us."
The Michigan Live media group, meanwhile, reported family members saying that West Michigan native and Navy SEAL David "Davey" John Warsen, 27, was among those killed during the special-operations mission.
