Plane in Georgia crash was set for retirement
Nine members of the Puerto Rico National Guard died in the accident.
ATLANTA — The military plane that crashed onto a Georgia highway this week shortly after takeoff, killing all nine airmen aboard, was manufactured in the late 1970s and on its final flight before its scheduled retirement, officials said.
The cause is under investigation. But the accident has drawn attention to the condition of aging military aircraft fleets.
“I can assure you the United States Air Force will conduct a thorough investigation in the hopes to minimize such occurrences from happening again in the future,” Col. Pete Boone, vice wing commander of the 165th Airlift Wing of the Georgia Air National Guard, said Thursday at a news briefing in Port Wentworth, near Savannah.
“It’s extremely important for us to fully understand what has happened,” he said. “Any speculation at this point without having all of the details could affect the outcome of the investigation.”
The WC-130 cargo aircraft from Puerto Rico’s 156th Airlift Wing nosedived into the middle of a state highway northeast of the Savannah/ Hilton Head International Airport on Wednesday morning, sending a fireball and thick, dark smoke into the sky.
The WC-130 is a modified variant of the C-130 Hercules, considered one of the military’s safest and most versatile planes and widely used by forces across the world.
It was one of six C-130s used by the Puerto Rico National Guard and had been used to rescue U.S. citizens from the Caribbean last year during hurricanes Irma and Maria and deliver food and water to islanders.
For the last two months, it had been been grounded in Savannah for maintenance, and only this week was declared fit for takeoff. Two other C-130s in the fleet had already been deemed inoperable and were grounded.
Military experts said numerous aircraft used by the National Guard and Army Reserve were aging handme-downs from other sectors of the military.
Brig. Gen. Isabelo Rivera, commanding officer of the Puerto Rico National Guard, said at a Wednesday news briefing that some of the C-130s in his fleet were “more than 60 years old” and due to be retired.
Still, he stopped short of saying age was a factor in the crash.
“Through the maintenance process these airplanes are constantly being upgraded,” he said. “An older-model airplane could be in f lying condition and modified into a modern airplane.”
The pilot in the crash Wednesday, Maj. Jose R. Roman Rosado, had told a friend that one aircraft he flew was built in the 1960s and had been rebuilt a few times, said the friend, Carlos Narvaez Rosario, a sports editor for El Vocero de Puerto Rico, a newspaper in San Juan.
“I was very worried about that,” Narvaez said.
“I asked him once, like a joke, ‘What will you do if your airplane goes down?’ and he told me, ‘I need to be sure that the people on the ground will be safe,’” he said, suggesting that that nosedive was an intentional maneuver to avoid more crowded areas.
The crash is the second involving a C-130 in the U.S. in the last year. Last July, 15 Marines and a Navy corpsman died when a KC-130T crashed into farmland in Mississippi as it traveled from North Carolina to California. The inquiry into that crash is ongoing.
It is also the latest in a string of deadly military aviation accidents. Last month, the Military Times compiled a database of warplane “mishaps” through the Freedom of Information Act, indicating that last year there were 909 accidents, up 40% from the 656 in 2013.
Some legislators have been quick to link recent accidents to cuts in military spending after President Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011.
“What has been evident to me for some time is now becoming clear to the American people,” House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry said in a statement last month. “The readiness of our military is at a crisis point.”
In March, Congress passed a $1.3-trillion spending bill that would boost defense spending, including for “operations and maintenance,” which involves maintenance of tanks, warplanes and ships, as well as troop training and ammunition.
But experts said there was no single factor that could explain the rise.
“If you look at the accident data for certain fleets of aircraft, the accident rates are going up, and that’s a big problem,” said Todd Harrison, an aerospace expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
“It’s not entirely clear that there’s one single reason why.”
Harrison said the Air Force was operating the oldest fleet of aircraft in its history. But he also said that significant numbers of accidents in which the crew made errors suggested a lack of training.
“A big part of it is our force has been stretched thin in terms of operations around the world,” he said. “And when you have your forces forward-deployed, doing real-world operations, that takes time away from maintenance and training. Money doesn’t fix that. It’s a time problem.”
Puerto Rican officials released the names of the airmen killed in the crash. In addition to Roman, the pilot, they were Maj. Carlos Perez Serra, 1st Lt. David Albandoz, Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred, Master Sgt. Mario Brana, Master Sgt. Victor Colon, Master Sgt. Eric Circun and Senior Airman Roberto Espada.
Collectively, they had 167 years of service.
“Our prayers for the family and friends of these nine Puerto Ricans,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello said in a statement Thursday. “In their honor, the flags will fly at half-staff for nine days.”