A C-130 cargo plane operated by the Puerto Rico Air National Guard went down near Savannah, GA during a training mission today. The crash happened about three miles east of Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. Nine people were on board. All of them perished.
Investigators will now try to determine what exactly went wrong in this case. But here's what we already know: These kinds of military accidents have gotten much too common lately as an overtaxed military is tasked with maintaining a remarkably old fleet of planes.
We dug into this issue last month after the latest in a rash of military accidents. Such accidents are up 40 percent since 2013, which just so happens to be when the budget-cutting Sequestration went into effect. As PM said then:
Cutting procurement results in older, more difficult to maintain aircraft staying in service longer. Cutting maintenance makes aircraft more likely to be unavailable for flight operations and increases the chance an undiagnosed issue will cause problems. Cutting training leaves aircraft and ship crews less effective at their jobs, especially during unexpected situations.
Whether you're talking about a cargo plane like the C-130, a bomber like the B-52, an attack plane like the A-10, or a fighter like the F/A-18, the U.S. military is keeping it planes flying for decades upon decades, much longer than their origin planned lifetimes, to the point that there's now a go-to joke about airmen working on the very same planes their grandfathers serviced. The badass, reliable C-130 has been flying in some form since the 1950s.
We'll keep you posted as investigators try to determine the mechanical cause for this C-130 crash. But the apparent root cause isn't going away.
Updates
A total of nine people were on board. The AP describes the crash as such:
The huge plane's fuselage appeared to have struck the median, and pieces of its 132-foot wingspan were scattered across lanes in both directions. The only part still intact was the tail section, said Chris Hanks, a spokesman for the Savannah Professional Firefighters Association. "It miraculously did not hit any cars, any homes," Effingham County Sheriff's spokeswoman Gena Bilbo said. "This is a very busy roadway."
The AP reports this morning, May 3, that the 40-year-old C-130 had been rescuing and resupplying Americans affected by the devastating hurricanes in Puerto Rico last year. This was supposed to be the cargo plane's final flight. It was on its way to retirement in Arizona. [Editor's note: Sources had previously said the plane was 60 years old, but it was actually manufactured in the 1970s and is closer to 40 years old. That's been corrected.]
According to Stars and Stripes, the pilot of the C-130 was Maj. Jose Rafael Roman from Manati, Puerto Rico, who had two sons and a wife who was five months pregnant. Roman reportedly had told a friend he was worried about the age of the planes he was flying.
The military IDed the plane's navigator as Maj. Carlos Perez Serra and its co-pilot as 1st Lt. David Albandoz. Also killed were Senior Master Sgt. Jan Paravisini, a mechanic; Master Sgt. Jean Audriffred; Master Sgt. Mario Brana, a flight engineer; Master Sgt. Victor Colon; Master Sgt. Eric Circuns, a loadmaster; and Senior Airman Roberto Espada.
Motorist Mark Jones saw the accident live and told the Savannah Morning News:
"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. 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."
Andrew's from Nebraska. His work has also appeared in Discover, The Awl, Scientific American, Mental Floss, Playboy, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with two cats and a snake.
