US Military Plane Crash in Mississippi Kills 16

VOA News

A U.S. Marine Corps plane crashed Monday in the southern state of Mississippi, killing 16 military personnel.

Officials said the KC-130 plane, a refueling tanker, went down in a soybean field about 135 kilometers north of Mississippi’s capital city, Jackson. The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Captain Sarah Burns said only that a KC-130 aircraft «experienced a mishap.» Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the aircraft was based at the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry Point, North Carolina.

President Donald Trump, in a Twitter comment on Tuesday, called the crash «heartbreaking» and said that he and first lady Melania Trump «send our deepest condolences to all!»

Leflore County Emergency Management Agency Director Frank Randle told reporters that 16 bodies had been recovered from the site of the crash and surrounding fields.

Marcus Banks, the fire chief from the city of Greenwood, said debris from the plane was scattered in a radius of about eight kilometers.