Detroit News -- CLINTON TOWNSHIP -- Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, 34, of Clinton Township has became the fourth Marine from Macomb County to die in Iraq since Thanksgiving.

He was among 30 Marines and a Navy medic killed Wednesday in the crash of a helicopter during a sandstorm near the Jordanian border. The crash was the single deadliest incident suffered by the military since the invasion of Iraq, and the largest number of Marines killed in a single event since the terrorist bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, in October 1983.

News of Klein's death came Thursday night, hours after area residents welcomed home members of another local unit, the Michigan National Guard 1440th Engineer Detachment-Firefighters also had been serving in Iraq. Forty-eight members of the unit were sent to Fort McCoy, Wis., in 2003 before deployment to Iraq.

Klein was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force from Marine Corps Base Hawaii, the Pentagon said.

He and other troops were being deployed for security operations in preparation of Sunday's elections when their CH-53E Super Stallion went down in western Iraq. Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said Wednesday there was no early indication of hostile fire. An investigation of the crash is in progress.

As of Thursday, at least 1,418 members of the U.S. military had died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Those killed included 40 service members from Michigan or with known Michigan ties.