A Puerto Rico Air National Guard C-130 crashed at 11:30 this morning at the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport in Savannah, Ga. Reports indicate that the military transport plane crashed after takeoff and came to rest on Ga. Hwy. 21, which lies on the east side of the airport.
“As far as we know, no cars were hit which is an absolute miracle,” Gena Bilbo, public information officer for Effingham County Sheriff’s Office, told CNN during a press conference.
A truck driver who witnessed the crash, Roger Best, said, “The guy is a hero he barely made it over the tree line looked as if he tried to turn and nose dive straight into the ground right in front of me.”
A spokesman for the Georgia Air National Guard, Capt. Jeff Bezore, told CBS News that there were at least five fatalities aboard the C-130. There are no reports on how many people were aboard the airplane or whether there may have been some survivors. There are no known fatalities on the ground.
The accident aircraft was a WC-130 variant of the large turboprop transport, used for weather research such as penetrating hurricanes. The first C-130 flew in 1954, but the aircraft is still in production. More than 60 countries around the world operate variants of the C-130, known as the “Hercules.”
The aircraft was enroute to Davis Monthan AFB in Arizona. The cause of the crash is not known, but the airplane has four engines. The loss of one engine takeoff is not normally catastrophic.
Originally published on The Resurgent
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