203rd RED HORSE memorial service honors 12th anniversary of fatal airplane crash
130303-Z-DO111-0004.JPG Photo By: Cotton Puryear

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia - The Virginia Air National Guard’s Virginia Beach-based 203rd RED HORSE Squadron holds a memorial service March 3, 2013, at Camp Pendleton to honor 18 unit members and three Florida Army Guard aviators who perished when the C-23 Sherpa they were flying in crashed in a cotton field near Unadilla, Ga., 12 years ago. The 18 engineers and three Florida aviators from Detachment 1, 171st Aviation Battalion, were killed March 3, 2001, as the 203rd members were returning home after completing a two-week military construction project at Hurlburt Field, Fla. The C-23 crash was the worst peacetime aviation disaster in the history of the National Guard, and the worst loss of life in the Virginia National Guard since World War II. (Photo by Cotton Puryear, Virginia Guard Public Affairs)


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