Relative of US airman killed in Middle East crash calls war on Iran ‘uncalled for’

A relative of an Ohio airman who was killed recently in a military airplane crash in Iraq amid the US and Israel’s war in nearby Iran has said the conflict is “uncalled for”.

“This could have been prevented,” Stephan Douglas said of the death of his cousin Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, in an interview with the Ohio news outlet WCMH. “We didn’t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for – and this is what we get.”

Simmons’s family urged US citizens to register to vote as a means of advocating for political change.

“Families are suffering right now,” Simmons’s grandmother, Bernice Smith, told WCMH. Without explicitly mentioning Donald Trump’s presidential administration, she added: “Just to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.”

Simmons was among six US service members killed when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed over Iraq on Thursday. Beside Simmons, two others of that group were also residents of Ohio, the state’s governor, Mike DeWine, said.

“We share in the sorrow of their loved ones,” a social media post from the Ohio air national guard’s 121st air refueling wing said. “And we must not forget the valuable contributions these airmen made to their country and the impact they have left on our organization.”

At a news conference on Friday, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: “War is hell – war is chaos. And as we saw … with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen.”

Hegseth said those killed in Thursday’s crash were “American heroes, all of them”.

As of Monday, 13 US service members had been reported killed during operations related to the Iran conflict, which began on 28 February, when a missile strike killed the Iranian supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

The conflict has been marked with mixed rhetoric about what Trump would consider victory, confusing allies, enemies and US voters casting ballots in primary elections ahead of November’s midterm races.

The Trump administration has also faced criticism for the bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran, which killed at least 175 people, mostly children.