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thedrifter
12-06-06, 08:00 AM
Two troops killed in chopper crash identified

By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer

MIRAMAR -- Military officials continued to sort out details Tuesday of an aircraft crash in Iraq that killed at least two service members on board a helicopter from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing headquartered at the Miramar air base.

The number of Marines who may have died in the crash was unclear Tuesday after initial reports that all four killed in the incident were Marines.

The Pentagon on Tuesday released the names of two servicemen, including a soldier and an Air Force officer, who were confirmed dead. They are Army Spc. Dustin M. Adkins, 22, of Finger, Tenn., and Air Force Capt. Kermit O. Evans, 31, of Hollandale, Miss. Adkins was with an Army Special Forces unit from Fort Campbell, Ky., and Evans was assigned to a unit from Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. Adkins was initially listed as missing after the crash.

Adkins and Evans died after their helicopter made an emergency landing in a lake near Haditha in Anbar province in Iraq. Military officials said there was no evidence that the helicopter was brought down by hostile fire. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

A Pentagon dispatch, compiled from information received from coalition forces in Iraq, said Monday that one unidentified Marine died in the crash. The dispatch said the Marine was recovered from the water but efforts to revive him failed.

Military officials at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station confirmed Tuesday that at least some of the dead were members of other armed services. They had no further information on the number of deaths in the crash, the identities of the victims, or their service affiliation. The Pentagon released no further information on the unidentified Marine who was reported dead.

Miramar officials were also unsure about the type of helicopter that crashed and whether it came from Miramar or other Marine bases -- Camp Pendleton, Twentynine Palms or Yuma, Ariz. -- that also serve the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

A spokesman at New Mexico's Cannon Air Force Base, reading from records he said came from U.S. Central Command, said the helicopter was a CH-46 Sea Knight, not a Chinook identified in Pentagon press releases. The Cannon spokesman, who refused to give his name, said Evans, the Air Force captain, was working on a joint mission with members of the other military services and was hitching a ride back to Balad Air Base in Iraq at the time of the crash.

"He was pretty much flying on a space-available basis," the spokesman said of Evans.

-- Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.

Ellie