Plane crash video shows National Guard C-130 aircraft plunging to ground
PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. -- Surveillance video captured a 1950s-era military cargo plane plunging to the ground. The C-130 aircraft exploded into flames on a busy Georgia highway Wednesday, killing all nine crew members aboard.
The Puerto Rico National Guard plane took off from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport shortly before 11:30 a.m. and was headed for retirement.
Surveillance video from a nearby business captured what happened next, CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports. The plane banked left before nosediving and spiraling into the ground. Seconds later, a fireball and black smoke went shooting into the sky.
The plane crashed into the median of the highway, narrowly avoiding traffic, warehouses and a nearby gas station.
First responders, including passing drivers, desperately searched through the heavy smoke for survivors. Roger Best was working nearby.
"All of my coworkers, we all stopped what we were doing," Best said. "We ran and got as close as we could, but you could tell there was nothing nobody could do."
Motorist Mark Jones told the Savannah Morning News that he saw the plane hit the road right in front of him, and explode in a huge fireball.
"It didn't look like it nosedived, but it almost looked like it stalled and just went almost flat right there in the middle of the highway," Jones said.
"I'm still shook up and shaking. My stomach is in knots because I know they're people just like me. I wasn't that far from it and I could have just kept going and it would have been me and we wouldn't be talking right now," Jones said.
The huge plane was being flown into retirement in Arizona, reducing Puerto Rico's National Guard fleet to five similar planes, two of which need maintenance and aren't being used, Adjutant Gen. Isabelo Rivera said. He said the aircraft was more than 60 years old.
"The planes that we have in Puerto Rico -- it's not news today that they are the oldest planes on inventory" among all National Guard planes nationwide, and they often face delays in getting spare parts shipped to the island, he said.
However, Col. Pete Boone, vice-commander of the Savannah-based 165th Airlift Wing of the Georgia Air National Guard, said at a Thursday news conference that the plane's age was closer to 40 years. He said it had been in Savannah for "routine maintenance."
Boone also said the U.S. military has launched its investigation into the crash, and said investigators will "use every resource at our disposal to identify a cause."
Boone said he did not know if the flight crew made a distress call to air traffic control before the crash. He said a military mortuary assistance team arrived overnight, but he didn't know if all the bodies had been recovered.
The pilot was identified as Maj. Jose Rafael Roman, who hails from the coastal town of Manati along Puerto Rico's north coast. The mayor of that town, Jose Sanchez, told The Associated Press that Roman had two young boys and his wife is five months pregnant with a girl.
"The town is in mourning," Sanchez said. "My condolences to all Puerto Rican families."
On Thursday, the Puerto Rico National Guard identified the other crew members as 1st Lt. David Albandoz, Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred, Master Sgt. Mario Brana, Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, Master Sgt. Víctor Colon, Senior Airman Roberto Espada, Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini and Maj. Carlos Perez Serra.
It's too early to say what might have caused the plane to drop out of the sky onto Georgia's Highway 21 moments after taking off. Rivera said the plane last received maintenance at the military base in Savannah in April.
All nine crew members had helped with hurricane recovery efforts as part of the 198th Fighter Squadron, nicknamed the Bucaneros, which flies out of Base Muniz in the northern coastal city of Carolina, Rivera said. The squadron used the plane to rescue Americans from the British Virgin Islands after Hurricane Irma, and later supplied food and water to Puerto Ricans desperate for help after Hurricane Maria.
"The National Guard is an extended family," Rivera said as doctors, psychologists and chaplains gathered to meet with the victims' relatives.
The huge plane came down so hard that the only part still intact was its tail section, said Chris Hanks, a spokesman for the Savannah Professional Firefighters Association. The fuselage appeared to have struck the median, and pieces of its wings, which spanned 132 feet, were scattered across lanes in both directions.
The debris field stretched 600 feet in diameter, Effingham County Sheriff's spokeswoman Gena Bilbo said.
"It miraculously did not hit any cars, any homes," she said. Eight hours after the crash, she confirmed that "To our knowledge there are no survivors."
The U.S. territory's Gov. Ricardo Rossello expressed his sadness, tweeting that "our prayers are with the families of the Puerto Rican crew."
President Trump tweeted that he had been briefed on the crash, and sent "thoughts and prayers for the victims, their families and the great men and women of the National Guard."
