PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. – The C-130 Hercules that crashed Wednesday onto a highway near Savannah, killing all nine Puerto Rico Air National Guard members on board, had been in service for about 40 years, contrary to reports suggesting it was older, military officials said Thursday morning.
The plane, manufactured in the late 1970s, was in Savannah for routine maintenance before heading to Arizona, though what kind of maintenance it was undergoing is not immediately clear, said Col. Pete Boone, Vice Wing Commander for the 165th Airlift Wing.
"An investigation is currently in progress to determine the cause of this tragic event and way sto prevent such tragedies from happening in the future," said Boone, adding that authorities would release new details that don't influence the crash investigation as they become available.
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The aircraft had just taken off from Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport about 11:30 a.m. when it plunged from the sky onto Georgia's Highway 21, exploding on impact. As of Thursday morning's brief, Boone could not say whether anyone on board radioed for help.
The colonel said there is a team in from Charleston Air Force Base conducting an investigation into what caused the crash, but did not have any details to share regarding the progress of that team's investigation.
On Thursday, the Puerto Rico National Guard released the identities of the service members killed in the crash: Maj. Jose Roman Rosado, Maj. Carlos Perez Serra, 1st Lt. David Albandoz, Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, Master Sgt. Jean Audriffed, Master Sgt. Mario Brana, Master Sgt. Victor Colon, Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, and Senior Airman Roberto Espada.
"When a tragedy like this occurs, every member of our United States armed forces feels it," said Boone, who asked for prayers, privacy and patience for those grieving the loss of the service members killed in the tragedy.
The plane, which was set to be decommissioned at some point, had undergone maintenance at the military base in Savannah in April, Adjutant General Isabelo Rivera said.
Aviation experts told News4Jax that the C-130 is a very safe plane designed to fly even with one or more of its four engines aren't working. Video of the plane appear to show it stall before falling from the sky.
Rivera said all nine crew members had helped with hurricane recovery efforts, rescuing Americans from the British Virgin Islands after Hurricane Irma and supplying food and water to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria.
Courtesy: James Lavine
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.
IMAGES: Cargo plane crashes on Georgia highway
Witnesses describe plane going down
Eyewitnesses who saw the military cargo plane go down described the explosion that followed.
"It was a huge ball of fire and it was loud and it shook my car. It was scary. I've never seen anything like that in my life and I don't like seeing stuff like that," said James Lavine, who was driving home from work when witnessed the crash. "It's playing over and over in my head."
The plane crashed onto Highway 21 moments after taking off from the Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, narrowly missing people on the ground and sending an orange and black fireball into the sky.
"It had just taken off. It looked like it was taking a turn and the nose of the plane went up in the air and it just starting coming down," Lavine said. "Just slammed in the middle of Highway 21.”
Lavine and another witness both said it appeared the plane may have gone into a stall before it crashed.
“The C-130 came flying over our head pretty low. He barely missed the top of the tree line that’s just how low he was. He seemed to me like he was trying to gain altitude. Maybe the plane stalled out," said witness Roger Best, who was a quarter mile of a mile away from the crash. "In the last second, you see he tried to make a hard banking left hand turn and that didn’t work. The plane nosed dive straight into the ground.”
Witnesses said the explosion was so big that the shock wave shook everything nearby.
"It shook my truck," Best said. "I've never seen anything like that and I wish I hadn't saw it."
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 U.S. territory’s Gov. Ricardo Rossello expressed his sadness, tweeting that “our prayers are with the families of the Puerto Rican crew.”
President Donald 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.”