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Sunday Morning News

Investigation Into Military Plane Crash Continues

Aired March 4, 2001 - 7:00 a.m. ET

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

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour in a rain soaked field in central Georgia. There investigators are converging this morning on the wreckage of a military transport plane. The twin engine, C-23 Sherpa slammed into a field yesterday morning killing 18 Air National Guard members and three Army personnel piloting the plane. CNN National Correspondent Mike Boettcher has the latest and joins us live -- Mike.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. The crash site is about a mile away from us behind this roadblock set up by the local sheriff's office at the request of the military. Overnight units from the Army and the Air Force set up an area around the crash site trying to secure it. Frankly, it was horrific weather here last night -- blinding rain, high winds. There were tornado warnings. And that was the kind of bad weather that this aircraft was flying through.

Now eyewitnesses say that the crash site is very compact, that the plane's area of crash is about a quarter mile only. All the debris scattered in a debris field only about that large. The plane was in route through all of this bad weather from Hurlburt Field in Florida to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia when it went down at about 10:00 to 11:00 yesterday morning.

Now, later on this morning, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, the Army Safety Center in Fort Rucker, Alabama and the FAA will converge here to begin the investigation. Eyewitnesses have already given them some clues. They said they heard a plane in trouble. One of those eyewitnesses was Gay Possey.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAY POSSEY, WITNESS: I stepped inside the -- devil and I heard this airplane. And it sounded like it was extremely low. And that it was going extremely fast and getting faster. And it was making sort of a whistling sound. And I was just thinking that -- you know, that something was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOETTTCHER: The weather is better this morning. That should aid investigators. Certainly they'll be looking at the weather as a factor. Gay Possey who you just saw there said that a piece of the wing fell about a hundred yards from her home. She said the debris was coming off the plane before it crashed. She went to the site and said there was a huge explosion. There was a lot of fire. And she saw no way anyone could survive the crash -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Mike Boettcher. Thank you. We'll continue to follow the investigation.

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