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Sunday Morning News

Cause of Military Plane Crash Still Unknown

Aired March 4, 2001 - 8:02 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, back to that tragic loss of life in the crash of the C-23 Sherpa transport plane in Georgia yesterday. The plane, which belonged to the Florida Army National Guard, was transporting 18 members of Virginia's Air National Guard from Florida to Virginia when it went down in a storm.

President Bush issued the following statement shortly thereafter: "I was deeply saddened to learn of the loss of 21 members of the Florida and Virginia National Guard aboard a C-23 transport plane that crashed this morning outside Macon, Georgia. This tragic loss on a routine training mission reminds us of the sacrifices made each and every day by all our men and women in uniform. The price of freedom is never free. Today's events remind us that it is sometimes unspeakably high."

Now, for the latest, we go to CNN's Mike Boettcher, who is near the crash site outside the town of Unadilla -- Mike.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Miles, the plane crashed in a cultivated field about a mile away from us. It's being blocked off by the sheriff's department here at the request of the military.

This morning investigators from the Army safety center at Fort Rutger (ph), Alabama, the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA will be going over the crash site, looking at the debris, trying to figure out what happened. That crash site is rather compact.

The plane was on its way from Florida to Oceana Naval Air Station near Virginia Beach, Virginia when it went down in bad weather. Witnesses say that they heard a plane in trouble flying around. Some describe a plan sputtering. Others say they heard it squealing as if it was diving.

One of those eyewitnesses was Gay Possey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAY POSSEY, WITNESS: I started looking up, you know, trying to find the airplane in the air and the ceiling was real low. It wasn't raining but the clouds were just real low and I couldn't find the airplane. And so I stepped back in the building because I was thinking well, it's by me now. Maybe it was higher than I thought it was. And about that time I heard it hit and it exploded and I saw the smoke and started running.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOETTCHER: Now, the plane that crashed was a C-23 Sherpa. There are 44 of them in the military inventory. It is a twin engine turbo prop that can carry more than 30 people. In this case it was carrying 21. It is not pressurized so it can fly up to levels of around 10,000 feet without the crew having to use oxygen. That would mean in a night like last night when the weather was bad and there were thunderstorms around, it would not be able to fly over that weather. That's one of the factors that investigators will look at.

One of the other problems, too, is military aircraft usually don't carry black boxes in case they're shot down in war time. They don't want the enemy seeing where they've flown and what happened in terms of the crash. So that will impede the work of investigators, but that is routine with military aircraft -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Mike, and just to clarify for us, in a case like this with a military aircraft down, who takes the lead on the investigation?

BOETTCHER: We are told that the Army safety center from Fort Rutger, those investigators will, since this was an Army National Guard aircraft -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: All right, CNN's Mike Boettcher live from Unadilla, Georgia.

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