The Department of Defense has identified the six American airmen killed when a U.S. Air Force military transport plane crashed in eastern Afghanistan.
The airmen were identified Saturday as: Capt. Jonathan Golden, 33, of Camarillo, California; Capt. Jordan Pierson, 28, of Abilene, Texas; Staff Sgt. Ryan Hammond, 26, of Moundsville, West Virginia; Senior Airman Quinn Johnson-Harris, 21, of Milwaukee; Senior Airman Nathan Sartain, 29, of Pensacola, Florida; and Airman 1st Class Kcey Ruiz, 21, of McDonough, Georgia.
Golden, Pierson, Hammond and Johnson-Harris were based at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. Sartain and Ruiz were based at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.
Five civilian passengers and an unknown number of people on the ground were also killed in the crash.
The cause of the early Friday crash remains under investigation, the Pentagon said in a press release Saturday.
The crash occurred while the transport plane was taking off from an airport in Jalalabad early Friday.
The investigation into the crash comes as the Pentagon launched a new probe on Saturday into an airstrike that hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 16 people.
• Kellan Howell can be reached at khowell@washingtontimes.com.
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