INDIAN SPRINGS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- An Air Force C-130 cargo plane crashed and exploded 'like a bomb' during nighttime military maneuvers near a desert runway Monday, killing seven soldiers and injuring 61 others.
The troops who survived the crash escaped from side exits in the rear just before fire reached the fuel tanks, turning the craft into an inferno on the Nevada desert.
'The plane missed the field. It hit the ground, sheered off its undercarriage and skidded several hundred feet before coming to a stop,' said Air Force Col. Mike Wallace. 'The fuel was seeping and it caught fire. Not until the fire spread did the pyrotechnics catch on fire.'
'That gave the troops in the back an opportunity to escape through the side exits. If it had been a normal crash the plane would have been a fireball,' Wallace said.
The fuel fire triggered a series of smaller explosions inside the aircraft fed by pyrotechnics -- flares and smoke grenades -- used in the night war games. The four-prop C-130 transport, with a wing span of 133-feet, hit the ground one mile short of the darkened Air Force landing strip.
Wallace said it was common for the air base to be dark and without landing lights during night training.
Eight of the 68 men aboard were Air Force crewmen based at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. The troops undergoing night realistic field condition training were assigned to Fort Lewis, Wash. A few army observers from Fort Campbell, Ky., were on board, according to a Fort Lewis Air Force spokesman said.
All of the C-130 Texas-based crewmen survived, but were hospitalized at nearby Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., for observation suffering from sprains and bruises.
Many residents of the quiet desert community of Indian Springs, located about 50 miles north of Las Vegas, heard the explosions and believed the noise was part of a night training bombing run.
'I was awakened by a loud noise,' said Lester Conaway, a retiree. 'Where I sat from my bedroom I saw what looked to me like heat lightning. I thought it was war games and heard several, maybe as many as a half dozen, aftershocks.'
Conaway said when he went to bed, about three hours before the crash, no lights were on at the Indian Springs Air Force Base, an auxiliary facility for Nellis Air Force Base.
'We hear bombs all the time,' said housewife Barbara Anderson.
The air smelled of sulfur and smoke from the smoldering wreckage was visible seven hours after the 3:20 a.m. EDT crash. Nevada Highway Patrolmen and military police blocked reporters and curious motorists from driving off nearby U.S. 95 and used bullhorns to keep them moving.
The crash site was 200 yards off the highway, the main artery linking Las Vegas with central and northern Nevada cities. The green tail section of the C-130 transport, visible from the highway, was silhouetted against the sky like a shark's fin.
A team of 40 to 45 military investigators arrived at the scene after dawn and fanned out into the desert to gather clues as to the cause of the accident.
Air Force Col. Mike Wallace said the bodies of seven victims were recovered. It was believed most of the dead were burn victims.
Wallace said 41 men treated for minor injuries at Nellis Air Force Base Hospital were flown back to their home base at Fort Lewis, Wash. Twenty men, mostly suffering from broken bones and cuts, were admitted to the hospital.
'I heard the crash and it woke me up about midnight,' said Indian Springs postmistress Deanne Dotson. 'It sounded like they were dropping bombs. My windows were rattling and I heard several smaller shocks.' Mrs. Dotson went back to sleep.
'I thought they were having night maneuvers, my trailer began to shake,' said Debbie McClure, a housewife who lives less than two miles from the crash scene. Maryann Miller, an all-night convenience store clerk, said the crash sounded 'like a bomb going off'.
The air cargo transport was attached to the Military Airlift Command's 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas. It was a supply ship for rangers in the 2nd battalion, 75th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Wash. The troops were participating in a joint Air Force-Army exercise which began Sept. 11.
The 'realistic field condition training' is staged on the sprawling Nellis Air Force Base Gunnary and Bombing Range which covers large expanses of southern and central Nevada.
'The plane was on a final approach and went down short of the airfield,' Wallace said. 'The materials aboard ignited as a result of the crash. In training missions of this sort, the cargo planes carry an abundance of flares and smoke grenades.'
It was expected to take a board of qualified examiners four to six weeks to determine the cause of the accident.
