The national grief over the military plane crash here extends directly to a door in Atlanta, to the father of an engineer who died on the plane.
Michael Snowden is the father of Staff Sgt. Joshua Snowden, who was among 15 Marines and one sailor who died Monday when their plane crashed in a rural soybean field. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but the faces of this tragedy are slowly coming to light.
Michael Snowden was close with his son, who visited Atlanta on several occasions. The father referred a reporter to a family friend, who described the Marine as “the very representation of a gentleman.”
Snowden attended Highland Park High School in the Dallas, Texas, area, where he played lacrosse and competed on the swim team, said the friend, Ross Hardage of Dallas. Hardage said Snowden was not married and that he loved being a Marine.
Marine officials have remained tight-lipped about the identities of those killed in the 4 p.m. Monday crash, in which witnesses say they saw the plane careening to the ground with an engine on fire. On Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Bradley S. James, commander of the Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing, said the plane experienced an emergency at high altitude. Crash spread debris over a few miles.
“Indications are something went wrong at cruise altitude,” he said. “There is a large debris pattern.”
Despite the Marines’ reticence the names of the crash victims are appearing on Facebook posts and other social media.
In Colchester, Vt., Kenneth Johnson is mourning the death of his son, Gunnery Sgt. Brendan Johnson. He was in charge of loading the cavernous space inside the KC-130T.
“He was going to retire next year,” said the father. “He loved flying.”
The elder Johnson added, “He said, ‘I’m getting older on this job. It’s time to let the young ones take over.’”
Brendan Johnson, 45, was a Boy Scout and graduated from Colchester High School and attended Johnson State College, where he studied fine arts and architecture. He loved traveling again and again across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He is married; his wife’s name is Anna.
“Brendan said the best part of the job was meeting people across the world,” said Kenneth Johnson.
The elder Johnson said his son was considering taking a job as a park ranger or a fish and game warden.
“He was a very good man,” his father said. “He had a tremendous sense of humor. He knew how to cheer up a whole room.”
In the little town of Colts Neck, N.J., Mayor Russell Macnow ordered flags to be lowered to half staff for U.S. Marine Dan Baldassare.
“He was a football player in high school and an all-around good guy,” the mayor told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday. In this town of 10,000 people, known for its home of rock star Bruce Springsteen, Baldassare graduated Colts Neck High School in 2015.
The Associated Press put together brief portraits of a few other victims, citing several news sources.
Sgt. Julian Kevianne, 31, joined the Marines in 2009 because he wanted to protect and defend the country, his brother told the Detroit Free Press.
“The Marines knocked on my mother’s door at 2 this morning,” Carlo Kevianne said. “They said his plane went down, and they weren’t able to find him.”
A new concrete walkway was poured Tuesday at Carlo Kevianne’s home. Julian’s mother, Tina Albo, carved a tribute to her late son: “Peace of my heart is in heaven.”
Kevianne, a flight engineer, lived with his wife Sherry Jennings-Kevianne in New Windsor, New York. He was based at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, home of a Marine Aerial Refueling and Transport Squadron.
Owen Lennon, 26, grew up in Pomona, New York, playing football and tennis for Ramapo High School in Rockland County before graduating in 2008.
A man answering the phone at the family’s home in Pomona confirmed the death to The Journal News, but said the family was grieving and declined to comment.
Lennon was stationed at Stewart.
Joseph Murray’s family recalls him as a ukulele player, former surfer kid and deeply religious family man who excelled in the Marine Corps.
Terry Murray told reporters Wednesday the 26-year-old special operations Marine had been a surfer at Sandalwood High School in Jacksonville, Florida, who surprised his military veteran parents by joining the Marines. The father said his son was at the center of family life and his Marine units, sharing his Christian faith by serving others and his country. Terry Murray said one Marine told him that Joseph hummed praise songs constantly on patrol.
Murray leaves a widow, Gayle, and four children — a 5-year-old, a 3-year-old, and twin 1-year-olds.
“He loved to play his guitar and ukulele for us,” Gayle Murray said in a statement. “What he wanted most in the world besides our happiness was to destroy evil on this earth.
The KC 130T plane was based at Stewart.
It was ferrying several members of an elite unit from Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina, a Navy medical corpsman and the plane’s crew to the Naval Air Facility in El Centro, California. They were then to travel by land to have pre-deployment training in Yuma, Ariz.
The plane was built in 1993, according to a story in the New York Times. The plane had refueled fighter jets patrolling the no-fly zone in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Later it transported troops and equipment into and out of the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, assignments that meant using rutted runways in dusty locales, the Times said.
According to federal aviation records, the plane was damaged in 2004 when a wind storm tipped it sideways onto one wing, while it was on the ground in Fort Worth, the Times said.
The military has designated the plane crash as a “Class A mishap.” The accident will be reviewed by a special board composed of a senior officer, Naval Safety Center investigator, a flight surgeon and operations and maintenance personnel.
The board usually takes about a month to review a crash, though they can ask for additional time, then will submit its recommendations for review by the Marine Corps chain of command.
The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this article.
