{"id":28502,"date":"2026-03-20T16:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/28502\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:02:12","slug":"alabama-airman-killed-in-iraq-crash-posthumously-promoted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/28502\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama airman killed in Iraq crash posthumously promoted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wbrc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">WBRC<\/a>) &#8211; The Air Force has posthumously promoted one of the airmen who died in the KC-135 refueling crash in Iraq on March 12. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Capt. Ariana Savino was promoted to Major, effective Jan. 23. She was assigned to the 99thAir Refueling squadron which is co-located with the 117thAir Refueling Wing in Birmingham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">\u201cAriana was a trailblazer who pursued every goal with unwavering determination. In 2025, she returned to training and earned her wings as a KC-135 pilot at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi. She deployed twice and supported three separate operations during her time as both a Combat Systems Officer and a KC-135 pilot. Ariana was known as a fervent role model with a \u201cruthless commitment\u201d to the next generation,\u201d the 117th Air Refueling Wing shared on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">She commissioned into the United States Air Force in 2017 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps at Central Washington University, Washington. She completed training as a Combat Systems Officer in 2020, and later served at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Along with Savino, five other pilots were killed in the crash. Two of them, Tech Sgt. Ashley Bardstown and Maj. Alex Klinner, also have ties to Alabama.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Left to Right: Captain Ariana G. Savino, Major John &quot;Alex&quot; Klinner, Technical Sargent Ashley...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774022532_19_5A65MTXAXJCANOEH5ME25HYPSA.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Left to Right: Captain Ariana G. Savino, Major John &#8220;Alex&#8221; Klinner, Technical Sargent Ashley B. Pruitt(117th Air Refueling WIng)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/2026\/03\/19\/us-leaders-family-pay-respects-alabama-airmen-dignified-transfer\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/2026\/03\/19\/us-leaders-family-pay-respects-alabama-airmen-dignified-transfer\/\">President Donald Trump along with Senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville<\/a> paid their respects Wednesday to the airmen as their flag draped coffins arrived at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Get news alerts in the <a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/wbrc-fox6-news\/id449660326\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple App Store<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.raycom.wbrc&amp;hl=en_US&amp;gl=US\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google Play Store<\/a> or subscribe to our email newsletter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wbrc.com\/newsletter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WBRC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) &#8211; The Air Force has posthumously promoted one of the airmen who died in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9966,11726,9965,9744,94,8793,9748,42,13338,13339,9743],"class_list":{"0":"post-28502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-117th-air-refueling-wing","9":"tag-airmen","10":"tag-ariana-savino","11":"tag-fox6","12":"tag-iraq","13":"tag-iraq-crash","14":"tag-major","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-posthumously-promoted","17":"tag-tech-sgt-ashley-bardstown-and-maj-alex-klinner","18":"tag-wbrc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116262348232823498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}