203rd RED HORSE honors fallen Airmen during memorial service

Lt. Col. Ayad M. Abisaab, 203rd Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron (RED HORSE) commander, addresses Airmen, family, friends and former members of the squadron, during a memorial service March 3, 2024, at the State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The annual service honors the 18 unit members and three Florida Army National Guard aviators killed 23 years ago. The 203rd RED HORSE engineers and the Florida aviators from Detachment 1, 171st Aviation Battalion, were killed March 3, 2001, when the C-23 Sherpa they were flying in crashed in a cotton field near Unadilla, Georgia. The members were returning home after completing a two-week military construction project at Hurlburt Field, Florida. 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. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Danielle Lofton)

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