Kaneohe Marine dad among 4 killed in copter crash

The Kaneohe major is the highest-ranking death from here since the Iraq war began

A 39-year-old father of three was among four service members killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq on Sunday, becoming the 16th Kaneohe Marine killed since their unit was deployed in September.

The father of Maj. Trane McCloud said his son was among four killed when a helicopter made an emergency landing in a lake in Anbar, Iraq.

McCloud, a Tennessee native, was 11 days shy of his 40th birthday and had served nearly 17 years with the Marine Corps, his father told the Elizabethton Star.

McCloud is the highest-ranking Hawaii-based military member to die in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

McCloud's wife and three children, ages 2, 5 and 6, live on Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay, said his father, Ron McCloud.

The military reported yesterday that four U.S. service members died when a Sea Knight helicopter plunged into a lake in volatile Anbar province, raising to 13 the number of American troops killed during a bloody weekend in Iraq.

It was the second military aircraft to go down in a week in Anbar, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents, although the military said mechanical problems rather than gunfire had forced the emergency landing on Sunday.

"The pilots maintained control of the aircraft the entire time," a military news release said.

A Marine was pulled from the water, but attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful. The bodies of three missing service members were found in a subsequent search, the military said. Twelve other passengers survived.

The U.S. command said today it couldn't identify the four victims by name or service affiliation, but the Department of Defense identified one of them as Army Spc. Dustin M. Adkins, 22, of Finger, Tenn., who was assigned to the Group Support Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky.

Ron McCloud told the Elizabethton Star yesterday morning that, according to reports he received, his son's body was missing.

"He was a fine young man, loved the Marines, and was the kind they (the Marines) look for," McCloud said. "He was a real patriot."

"I hope to hear something more today," the grief-stricken McCloud told the Elizabethton Star.

Four Kaneohe-based Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, were killed two weeks ago from wounds received conducting combat operations in Al-Anbar province.

In Sunday's accident, the helicopter, from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, had the ability to land and taxi in the water in case of emergency. It came down in Lake Qadisiyah, a huge reservoir behind the hydroelectric dam at Haditha on the Euphrates River.

The deaths came on a weekend in which nine other U.S. troops were killed, including five in Anbar. The weekend's violence pushed the total number of American service members who have died since the war started in March 2003 to at least 2,901.

A U.S. fighter jet also crashed last week in a field, killing the Air Force pilot.

Sunday's helicopter crash is the second with a Kaneohe connection.

On Jan. 24, 2005, a helicopter crash killed 26 Kaneohe Marines and one Navy corpsman based at Pearl Harbor. That was one of the deadliest days for Hawaii's military since World War II.