Coast Guard Academy to honor crew lost in mid-air collision

New London— The U.S. Coast Guard Academy will hold a short ceremony tomorrow to honor the crews of a Coast Guard plane and a Marine helicopter that collided Thursday.

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Che J. Barnes, the aircraft commander, and Lt. Adam W. Bryant, the co-pilot, are both academy graduates with degrees in mechanical engineering. Barnes, 35, graduated in 1996; Bryant, 28, in 2003.

The aircraft collided Thursday night as the Coast Guard was searching for a missing boater over the ocean near San Diego. Searchers found debris from both aircraft but no sign of the crew members.

Seven people were aboard the Coast Guard C-130, two on the helicopter.

Their names will be read at the academy and the chaplain will say a prayer as the flags are raised at 8 a.m. tomorrow.

The Coast Guard Foundation re-activated its emergency Family Disaster Relief Fund in response to the crash, as a way to ask for financial support to assist the families of the lost Coast Guard crew. The foundation plans to help the families through its scholarship program.

The foundation is also working with the Coast Guard to plan a memorial service for the crew on Friday at Air Station Sacramento in California.

Anyone wishing to donate can visit the foundation's Web site, www.coastguardfoundation.org, call the foundation at 860-535-0786, or fax a note to 860-535-0944 with donation information and a reference to the Disaster Relief Fund.

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