BOISE, Idaho. — Idaho National Guard soldiers, neighbors, families and friends mourned the two Guard pilots who were killed when their Apache attack helicopter crashed during a training mission near the Boise airport.
The Idaho Statesman reports that U.S. flags went up throughout the small subdivision in Meridian where one of the pilots, Stien P. Gearhart, 50, lived with his wife, Vickie. Residents in the close-knit neighborhood rallied around the family.
“He’s a wonderful man,” said Gearhart’s longtime neighbor Kim Hollingsworth, who lives around the corner from the Gearhart’s home. His family is “dealing with a devastating loss, and our hearts are devastated for them. And it’s a devastating loss for the neighborhood, too.”
Gearhart left behind two grown sons in addition to his wife, neighbors said.
Gearhart and Jon L. Hartway, who also died in the crash, were both chief warrant officers with the Idaho Army National Guard. Their helicopter was one of 16 Apaches based at Gowen Field. The two pilots were assigned to the 1-183rd Attack Reconnaissance Battalion at Gowen Field.
In Kuna, Hartway, 43, was remembered as someone who loved the military and helping others.
“The guy loved his country. He loved the military,” said Meridian Deputy Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea, one of Hartway’s neighbors, who served as a spokesman for the Hartway family.
Hartway spent a combined 20 years in the U.S. Army and the National Guard and flew numerous combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hartway, his wife, Jennifer, and their two children returned to Idaho about four years ago, after he left the Army, Basterrechea said.
“He was someone people looked up to,” Basterrechea said. “My boy called him ‘Captain America.’ “
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, Guard spokesman Col. Tim Marsano said.
The crash was hard for the Gowen Field community, Marsano said. The last Idaho National Guard aircraft crash happened in 2000, when an Idaho Air National Guard A-10 crashed in the Treasure Valley. That crash killed the pilot.
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