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Family, Comrades Honor Fallen Colorado Pilot

AURORA, Colo. (CBS4/AP) - Family members, friends and comrades gathered Friday to honor a Colorado National Guard pilot who was among 38 people killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

Chief Warrant Officer 4 David R. Carter, 47, was one of two pilots aboard a Chinook helicopter that crashed Aug. 6, apparently when it was shot down by insurgents.

Carter will be buried in Fort Collins on Friday after a memorial service at Eastern Hills Community Church in Aurora, where he lived.

Chief Warrant Officer David Carter
Chief Warrant Officer David Carter (credit: CBS)

Carter was a full-time Army National Guardsman and an instructor pilot. Neighbors and comrades have described him as a skilled pilot, an expert teacher and a reliable comrade and friend.

"Nobody felt any timidity getting in the back of his aircraft," said Army Guard Col. Chris Petty, commander of the Guard's aviation facility at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora. The facility was Carter's home station before he deployed to Afghanistan.

Petty said Carter had been in Afghanistan only 10 to 14 days before he was killed.

His body was returned to Colorado on Wednesday in a solemn ceremony at Buckley.

Carter is survived by his wife, Laura, and two children, Kyle and Kaitlen. The family has asked for privacy and hasn't commented publicly about Carter's death.

The crash is under investigation.

PHOTO GALLERY: Aurora Airman's Body Returns To Colorado

The dead included 17 Navy SEALs, five Navy special operations troops who support the SEALs, three Air Force airmen, a five-member Army air crew that included Carter, seven Afghan commandos, an Afghan interpreter and a military dog.

All but two of the SEALs were from SEAL Team 6, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, although military officials have said that none of the crash victims participated in that mission.

The crash was the single deadliest loss for U.S. forces in the nearly decade-long war.

By DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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