Jeffrey R. Armour, TSgt., USAF (Fallen)
October 31, 1960 – September 03, 1998

Jeffrey R. Armour, and Air Force Technical Sergeant, died Sept. 3 while on a training mission in Indian Springs, NV. He was 37.

He was born in Rahway, and lived in Roselle, Butler and Paxton, Mass., and Rahway before moving to North Las Vegas.

He was a 1978 graduate of Rahway High School. He attended Rutgers University in Newark before entering the Air Force. He was an avid skier and mountain climber.

A flight engeneer with the Air Force, he was five months from retirement when two Air Force helicopters collided during a training mission in the Nevada desert, killing him and 11 others.

He received many citations over his military career, and recently received the Aerial Achievement Medal, Fourth Oak Leaf Cluster and the Meritorious Service Medal.

He is survived by his wife of 13 years, the former Lynne Sorensen; a son, David at home; two daughters, Caryl and Stephanie; both at home; his mother and stepfather, Ruth Lynn Guiler Petroff and Athur Petroff of Pittstown; his father and stepmother, Les and Carol Armour of Morris Township; a brother, Les Armour III of Morris Township and a sister, Melanie Bostrom-Dysart of the Pittstown section of Franklin, Hunterdon County.

Services will be held at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Corey and Corey Funeral Home, 259 Elm Ave., Rahway. Burial with full military honors will be at Hazelwood Cemetery, Clark.

Memorial gifts may be made to the Jolly Green Association Scholarship Fund, Box 965, O’Fallon, IL 62269, or the Jeffrey R. Armour Memorial Fund, in care of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Sky Manor Road, Pittstown, NJ 08867.

In one of the worst training accidents in recent Air Force history, all 12 crew members aboard a pair of rescue squadron helicopters were killed early Friday when their choppers crashed in the darkness of the Nevada desert.

The two Pave Hawk helicopters were nearing the end of a routine four-hour training mission when they went down shortly after midnight about 55 miles north of Las Vegas in a mountain region that reaches heights of 6,800 feet, military officials said.

The victims, all men, were part of the 66th Rescue Squadron, the largest in the Air Force, which was recently deployed in Turkey and the Persian Gulf. The 65-foot-long helicopters that crashed Friday can reach speeds of up to 222 mph and are typically used by a six-member crew to locate downed pilots trapped in enemy territory.

The two flight crews were conducting a standard training mission, navigating the mountain region and conducting low-altitude flying to practice means of evading antiaircraft guns and surface-to-air missiles, officials said. Such training sessions are run from Nellis almost nightly.

The victims were identified as: Capt. Gregg W. Lewis, pilot; Capt. Phillip Miller, co-pilot; Staff Sgt. Kevin M. Brunelle, flight engineer; Staff Sgt. Kennety W. Eaglin, flight engineer; Senior Airman Jesse D. Stewart, para-rescueman; Master Sgt. Matthew Sturtevant, gunner; Lt. Col. William H. Milton, pilot; Capt. Karl Youngblood pilot; Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey R. Armour, flight engineer; Senior Airman Adam Stewart, flight engineer; Airman 1st Class Justin C. Wotasik, para-rescueman; and 2nd Lt. Michael Harwell, mission essential ground personnel.