ATLANTA — Nine people were believed killed Wednesday when an Air National Guard transport plane crashed near the Georgia coast, prompting a new inquiry into one of the military’s most widely used aircraft.

The plane, a WC-130, crashed on a clear morning close to Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. It was the second time in less than a year that a version of the C-130, a workhorse of military aviation, was involved in a fatal episode.

“To our knowledge, at this point, there are no survivors,” Gena Bilbo, a spokeswoman for the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office, said Wednesday night.

The military said that the plane was from the 156th Airlift Wing, a unit of the Puerto Rico Air National Guard, and that it was bound for Arizona when it crashed.