The killed crew members were from around the country and were stationed at military bases in Ohio and Florida, department officials said.

A Wilmington man who flew KC-135 Stratotankers for the Ohio Air National Guard’s 121st Air Refueling Wing was among six U.S. service members killed in a refueling plane that crashed March 12 in western Iraq.

It first flew in 1956, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. It carries 200,000 pounds of fuel, siphoned away mid-air through a metal tube. And it doesn’t have parachutes, trapping crews during a crash.