Unadilla, Ga. — As heavy rain subsided early Sunday, military personnel trekked through knee-deep mud to reach the charred wreckage of a transport plane to begin the grim recovery of the bodies of 21 National Guardsmen who died onboard.
It was the first time that many of the 150 specialists brought in from bases across the country were able to view the field where the Army C-23 Sherpa went down Saturday morning while traveling from Florida to Virginia.
A C-23 Sherpa soars above a mountain range. The same kind of aircraft was involved in a crash Saturday in Georgia that killed 21 people.
Officials of the U.S. Army Safety Center at Ft. Rucker, Ala., which is in charge of the investigation, said it could take two to three weeks to determine the cause of the crash. The in-flight data and voice recorders were recovered from the wreckage, but officials said they had not been reviewed as of late Sunday and they were not sure if the equipment was working at the time of the crash.
Authorities said the victims would be taken to an Air Force casualty center in Dover, Del., but they were unsure how long the recovery would take because of the mud.
"Our priority is to first secure the site, assess the situation and determine the best course of action," said Col. Dan Woodward, a commander at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins. "The street turns into a dirt road leading to the site and we have tight quarters that make it extremely difficult to get the large equipment in and out. And once we get it off the road, it's tenuous. Even our four-wheel drive vehicles are having difficulty getting in and out of the field."
One of many things investigators will be looking at is whether the plane broke apart before impact. Witnesses reported seeing debris fall before the plane crashed, which could explain why some parts of the plane are in one field and the fuselage, which exploded shortly after hitting the ground, is in another.
The thick Georgia red mud and standing water on what residents in the sparsely populated community call the "worst 200 feet of roads in Dooly County" hampered recovery efforts Saturday. Sunshine and light winds helped to settle the dirt in the muddy fields and dry up the marshes created by two nights of thunderstorms that dropped 3 inches of rain.
The plane went down shortly after 10 a.m. Saturday in a field owned by John Bryant. He heard the explosion that rattled his windows but he dismissed it thinking the noise was just another sonic boom from one of the aircraft at Robins.
When a friend stopped by and told him that a military plane had crashed on his property less than 2 miles from his home, he got into his pickup truck and headed down the narrow dirt road. He persuaded his friends from the Dooly County Sheriff's Department to let him enter the secured area and survey the damage to his land. What he saw was the smoldering aftermath of one of the deadliest military plane crashes in America in two decades.
The wreckage was scattered over two sites in the 11-acre field that Bryant had plowed two weeks ago. The crushed fuselage, holding most of the bodies, lay in an open field where he intended to plant cotton next month. Across the street, less than a quarter-mile up the road, were several pieces of debris, including one about the size of a pickup truck that might have been the plane's wing.
"I drove up to a certain spot and then walked through the mud. It came up to your knees and your feet felt like they weighed 50 pounds," said Bryant, 57, whose family has owned the 145-acre farm for more than 30 years.
"It's hard to believe this happened on my land. You know the old saying, 'It'll never happen to me?' That's the feeling I had then, and now it just feels strange."
The C-23 Sherpa, which can carry up to 30 passengers and three crew members, is primarily used by the Army National Guard for troop and equipment transport, airdrop and medical evacuation. Officials said they had not determined what cargo the plane was carrying and whether that or weather conditions contributed to the crash.
The 58-foot long twin turboprop plane has been used since 1984.
Authorities early Sunday released the names of the victims who included the pilot and two crewmembers from the 171st Aviation Battalion of the Army National Guard in Lakeland, Fla., and 18 guardsmen from the 203rd Red Horse Flight Unit of the Virginia Air National Guard. Officials said no problems were reported when the plane took off from Hurlburt Field near Ft. Walton Beach in Florida for the Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia.
The guardsmen were members of a military construction and engineering crew that had been on a two-week training exercise in Florida, authorities said.
Only one military aviation disaster has been deadlier in the U.S.--a 1982 crash in Illinois. Twenty-seven people, including 23 National Guardsmen, were killed when their plane exploded in midair and crashed into a swampy area near Greenwood in McHenry County.
The military set up a command center Saturday night, complete with food tents, sleeping areas and portable toilets, about a mile from the crash site. Army vehicles lined the narrow road leading to the site, while sheriff's department deputies blocked streets 2 miles away.
"The Army made the decision early on to take the recovery very slowly for safety reasons. The area is still deep in mud and we don't want to compound this tragedy with an accident," said Maj. Randy Noller, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau. "And with more rain expected to come into the area, nothing is helping us at this point."
Unadilla is a town of about 2,000 people some 45 miles south of Macon. Dooly County is home to about 12,000 people, many of them farmers who earn a living growing cotton, peanuts and soybeans.
But for some residents who live in the 40 or so homes scattered around the crash site, life in this usually quiet hamlet will never be the same.
Bryant will have to delay planting some of his crops this season. He expects that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will want to dig up the field to assess the oil contamination from the crash. He doesn't know if he will ever plant again on the soil where 21 people died.
"This is a horrible thing," he said. "I don't think I'll be going back to that part of the farm for a while."
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.