Bodies of U.S. crew in Afghan crash sent home

Bodies of service members who died in a crash in Afghanistan are carried to a C-17 aircraft for travel home to the United States.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The bodies of three U.S. service members killed in the crash of an Air Force plane in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday were put on a C-17 aircraft for the journey home Sunday after a brief military ceremony.

A military honor guard escorted the bodies as they were transferred to the plane in the late-morning ceremony at Bagram Air Base.

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Sean M. Corlew, 37, of Thousand Oaks, California, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Anissa A. Shero, 31, of Grafton, West Virginia, were assigned to the Air Force's 16th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Peter P. Tycz II, 32, of Tonawanda, New York, was assigned to the Army's 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The MC-130H crashed on takeoff from a forward operating base around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday near the Bande Sardeh Dam, about 40 miles southwest of the eastern Afghan town of Gardez, a region where U.S. forces have gone after al Qaeda holdouts along the Pakistan border.

Air Force officials said the crash of the MC-130H in Paktika province did not appear to have been caused by enemy fire. An Air Force team was headed to Afghanistan to investigate the cause, a U.S. military spokesman said Thursday.

Seven other military personnel survived when the Special Operations aircraft crashed on takeoff.