Witnesses to military plane’s crash heard ‘long, steady rumble’
Fifteen members of elite Marine unit and a Navy corpsman died in Mississippi.
ITTA BENA, Miss. — Investigators picked through debris across a fire-blackened soybean field Tuesday to try to determine why a U.S. military plane slammed into the ground, killing all 16 people aboard in the deadliest Marine crash anywhere in theworld in more than a decade.
The KC-130 air tanker was carrying members of an elite Marine unit crosscountry for training in Arizona when it went down Monday afternoon in the Mississippi Delta, the military said. The fiery crash scattered wreckage for miles around and sent pillars of black smoke rising over the countryside.
Witnesses said they heard low, rumbling explosions when the plane was still high in the sky, sawthe aircraft spiraling toward the flat, green landscape and spotted an apparently empty parachute floating toward the Earth.
Thecrashhappenedoutside the small town of Itta Bena about 85 miles north of the state capital of Jackson. Bodies were found more than a mile from the plane.
Fifteen Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed. Their identitieswere not immediately released.
Itwas the deadliestMarine Corps air disaster since 2005, when a transport helicopter went down during a sandstorm in Iraq, killing 30 Marines and a sailor.
The Marine Corps said the cause was under investigation and offered no information on whether the plane issued a distress call.
FBI agents joined military investigators, though Marine Maj. Andrew Aranda told reporters that no foul playwas suspected.
“They are looking at the debris and will be collecting information off of that to figure out what happened,” Aranda said. The county coroner, meanwhile, brought in body bags to remove the dead.
The KC-130 is used to refuel aircraft in flight and transport cargo and troops.
The plane was based at Stewart AirNational Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y., and officials said some of those killed were from the base. Several bouquets were left at the main gate at Stewart, which was closed to reporters and issued no immediate statement.
Six of the Marines and the corpsmanwere froman elite Marine Raider battalion at Camp Lejeune, N.C., the Marine Corps said. It said the seven and their equipment were headed for pre-deployment training at Yuma, Ariz.
Will Nobile, a catfish farmer, said he was inside his office Monday afternoon when he heard an unusually loud rumble in the sky.
“It sounded like a big thunderstorm,” Nobile said. “Not one big explosion, but a couple of secondexplosions. A long, steady rumble is what it was.”
Hewalked outside to see what was making the noise in the cloudless afternoon and saw a “gray streak” disappear behind some trees, and then black smoke rising.
Andy Jones said he was working on his family’s catfish farm just before 4 p.m. when he heard a boom and looked up to see the plane spiraling downward with one engine smoking.
“You looked up and you saw the plane twirling around,” he said.