BOSTON -- A local soldier has been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq.

NewsCenter 5's Gail Huff reported that it was 22-year-old Jeremy Bouffard's first tour in Iraq, and friends said that he'd only recently arrived.

Married with a young child, he's from Middlefield and was following in the footsteps of his father, Steven, who is in the National Guard and recently returned from Kuwait.

Wednesday morning, Bouffard was with a group of U.S. soldiers on nighttime maneuvers about 180 miles north of Baghdad.

After the mission was complete, they were picked up by a UH 60 Black Hawk helicopter. Two others helicopters provided cover.

But moments after take-off, there was an apparent mechanical failure, and the Blackhawk plunged to the ground, killing Bouffard and the other 13 on board.

"We're 99 percent certain it's mechanical and not enemy activity," an official said.

With the steady rise in ground attacks against U.S. troops, the military is relying more and more on air power. Since the war began, nine black hawks have crashed killing 60 soldiers.

The wreckage from the helicopter crash has already been recovered, and an investigation team was on its way.

There were two helicopters on the mission. Nothing happened to the second one, and investigators said that they hope they'll be able to tell them what they saw and heard in the moments before it went down.