Iraqi Pilot Buried With 4 U.S. Airmen at Arlington

ARLINGTON, Va. —  An Iraqi pilot and four U.S. airmen were together aboard an Iraqi air force plane when it crashed in May. Their remains were buried together Thursday in Arlington National Cemetery.

Iraqi Air Force Capt. Ali Hussam Abass Alrubaeye, 34, was the first Iraqi ever buried at the United States’ premier military cemetery.

“This will signify that these warriors were training together, they went into battle together, they died together and it’s only proper that they be buried together,” Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s Special Operations Command, said before the service.

A silver casket covered with an American flag contained Abass’ remains as well as those of Maj. William Downs, 40, of Winchester, Va.; Capt. Jeremy Fresques, 26, of Clarkdale, Ariz.; Capt. Derek Argel, 28, of Lompoc, Calif.; and Staff Sgt. Casey Crate, 26, of Spanaway, Wash.

Even after DNA tests, officials were unable to identify some remains of the five men killed May 30 when their single-engine plane crashed in eastern Diyala province. Separate funerals with remains that could be identified were held earlier by each of the airmen’s families. The four had been assigned to Hurlburt Field, Fla.

The unidentified remains were buried with full military honors, including the presentation of Iraqi flags to Abass’ parents and widow by Iraqi air force Commander Maj. Gen. Kamal Abdul-Sattar Barzanjy. The 30-minute service included a procession by a U.S. Air Force band, a flyover and a 21-gun salute.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Tom Sherlock, the cemetery’s historian, said of the group burial. “This person was shoulder to shoulder with American airmen.”

The crash is still under investigation but is not believed to have been the result of hostile fire, Wooley said. The six-seat Comp Air 7SL aircraft had been on a mission to survey potential emergency landing sites in the region.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Alton Phillips, who served with Abass in Iraq this spring, said the captain would have wanted his death to be part of efforts to bring about positive change in Iraq.

“He was very dedicated about doing this mission, about getting the Iraqi air force, rebuilding it and making it viable,” Phillips said in a telephone interview from Kirkuk, Iraq. “If anyone deserves such an honor, it is certainly Capt. Abass.”

There have been eight group burials at Arlington involving 19 foreigners, Sherlock said. There are 43 individual foreigners also buried there, he said.

In 2002, the unidentified remains of three Americans and seven South Vietnamese soldiers were buried after the site of their 1968 crash in Laos was found.

Thursday’s burial brought the total number of people involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom buried at Arlington to 184.