9 people were believed murdered on Wednesday, May 2, when an Air National Guard transport plane crashed close to Georgia coast.
The plane, WC-130, crashed near Savannah Hilton Head International Airport. It is the 2nd time in less than a year that a version of C-130, a workhorse of military aviation, is involved in a crash.
According to Gena Bilbo, spokeswoman for Effingham County Sheriff’s Office, at this point, there were no survivors. The military said that the plane was from 156th Airlift Wing, a unit of Puerto Rico Air National Guard, and was bound for Arizona when it crashed.
Nine people were listed on flight’s manifest. They were all Puerto Ricans.
The plane, which had been in Savannah for nearly a month for maintenance, came down at intersection on Georgia State Highway 21, in an area of light industry and woods just northeast of the airport grounds.
Video images posted on Twitter showed the plane diving headlong to the ground, and then a plume of smoke from explosion. The user who posted it, Scott Cohen, wrote it had come from a security camera at his business in Garden City, Ga., close to the crash site.
President Trump wrote on Twitter:
“Please join me in thoughts and prayers for the victims, their families and the great men and women of the National Guard”.