Of the 15 Marines and the Navy sailor killed in a military plane crash in Mississippi, two were from Washington state.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said the final set of remains was recovered Thursday from a farm field where the KC-130 crashed Monday. Most of the remains have since been flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where military officials say they will be processed by Air Force mortuary personnel and then released to their grieving families.
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The United States Marine Corps identified the fallen on Friday: Maj. Caine Michael Goyette, Capt. Sean E. Elliott, Gunnery Sgt. Mark. A. Hopkins, Gunnery Sgt. Brendan C. Johnson, Staff Sgt. Robert H. Cox, Staff Sgt. William Kundrat, Sgt. Chad Jenson, Sgt. Julian M. Kevianne, Sgt. Talon Leach, Sgt. Owen Lennon, HM2 Ryan Lohrey, Sgt. Joseph Murray, Sgt. Joshua M. Snowden and Cpl. Daniel Baldassare.
Sgt. Dietrich Schmieman and Cpl. Collin J. Schaaff were on the list, with their home of record showing Washington. Below are brief portraits of the local victims.
Dietrich Schmieman, 26
Dietrich Schmieman joined the Marine Corps at age 19 with an ambition to serve in special operations, his father said.
Schmieman, 26, grew up in Richland, Washington, and enlisted after completing an academic program that allows students to earn a college associate's degree while they finish high school, said his father Eric Schmieman.
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"The most common comments his friends made about him were that he helped them and he inspired them to live life to the fullest," Eric Schmieman told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "He certainly did that himself."
He said his son served in a reconnaissance unit before joining the elite Raider command about two years ago.
Corey Smith, of Richland Lutheran Church, who was Dietrich Schmieman's youth pastor from sixth grade until he enlisted, said the young man joined the
Marines
out of a desire to serve others.
"That's the kind of heart he had," Smith said in a phone interview. "He loved to help people."
Collin J. Schaaff, 22
Cpl. Collin Schaaff, 22, joined the Marines in 2013 after graduating from Franklin Pierce High School in Tacoma, Washington.
Stationed at Stewart, his job included loading ordinance onto planes.
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Schaaff and his wife, Sarah Beth Schaff, have a 1-year-old daughter, with a second daughter due in November. The family declined comment through friends.
Tono Sablan went to high school with Schaaff, graduating a year behind him. He said he and Schaaff were in a leadership class.
"As his heart, he was just a fun, goofy guy. Not a day went by without him smiling."
Schaaff was a member of an Air Force Junior ROTC unit that competed in a national drill competition.
"There was not a question he was joining the
Marines," Sablan said. "That was rock-solid. The type of dedication that he had, if he was committed to something, he was going to go all the way."
About the plane crash
The plane departed from Cherry Point, North Carolina.
Before the accident, the KC-130 landed at Memphis International Airport, possibly to refuel, before taking off again. The aircraft was part of a Marine aerial refueling and transport squadron based in New York. It was traveling from the Marine Corps. air station in Cherry Point, North Carolina, to El Centro, California, when it disappeared from air traffic control radar over Mississippi.
The Lockheed Martin KC-130 is a four-engine turboprop military tanker aircraft used for aerial refueling.
This variant of the C-130 is used by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Marine Corps.
Search teams are still finding aircraft parts in the 5-mile debris field, Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks
told CNN. Though there is no official conclusion about the cause of the crash, and officials continue to review data, video of the aftermath indicates the crew made no attempt to land the plane, and the plane was upside down as it burned in the soybean field, the official said.
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