Debris from the plane was scattered in a five-mile radius and bodies were found more than a mile from crash site

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A military plane crashed into a field in rural Mississippi on Monday, killing 16 people onboard and spreading debris for miles, officials said.

A US marine corps spokesman said on Tuesday a navy corpsman and 15 marines were killed.

Maj Andrew Aranda said the flight of the KC-130T originated from marine corps air station Cherry Point, in North Carolina, and was taking people and equipment to naval air facility El Centro, in California, when it crashed on Monday afternoon in a soybean field near Itta Bena, Mississippi.

Aranda said many of the marines were from a unit based in New York with active duty and reserve members. The marine corps said personal weapons and small-arms ammunition were aboard.

The names of the 16 people killed were being withheld while loved ones were notified.

Donald Trump offered condolences to the families of those who died. Trump tweeted early Tuesday: “Marine Plane crash in Mississippi is heartbreaking. Melania and I send our deepest condolences to all!”

The Leflore County emergency management agency’s director, Frank Randle, told reporters at a late briefing on Monday that 16 bodies had been recovered after the KC-130 spiralled into the ground about 85 miles (135km) north of Jackson, in the Mississippi delta.

Capt Sarah Burns, a marines spokeswoman, said in a statement that a KC-130 “experienced a mishap” but provided no details. The KC-130 is used as a refuelling tanker.

Brett Carr, an FBI spokesman, told the New York Times the agency was sending officials to the scene, but authorities did not believe foul play was involved.

“We’re just trying to offer any type of assistance,” Carr, a spokesman for the bureau’s Jackson, Mississippi, office, told the newspaper. “It could be anything from manpower to evidence response.”

Mississippi’s governor, Phil Bryant, said in a statement on Facebook that the incident was a tragedy but provided no details.

Andy Jones said he was working on his family’s catfish farm just before 4pm when he heard a boom and looked up to see the plane corkscrewing downward with one engine smoking.

“You looked up and you saw the plane twirling around,” he said. “It was spinning down.”

Jones said the plane hit the ground behind some trees in a soybean field, and by the time he and others reached the crash site fires were burning too intensely to approach the wreckage. The force of the crash nearly flattened the plane, Jones said.

“Beans are about waist-high, and there wasn’t much sticking out above the beans,” he said.

Jones said a man borrowed his cellphone to report to authorities that there were bodies across US highway 82, more than a mile from the crash site.

The Greenwood fire chief, Marcus Banks, told the Greenwood Commonwealth debris from the plane was scattered in a radius of about five miles (8km).

Jones said firefighters tried to put out the fire at the main crash site but withdrew after an explosion forced them back. The fire produced towering plumes of black smoke visible for miles across the flat region and continued to burn after dusk, more than four hours after the crash.

Aerial pictures taken by WLBT-TV showed the skeleton of the plane burning strongly.

“It was one of the worst fires you can imagine,” Jones said. He said the fire was punctuated by the pops of small explosions.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

