BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. -- A West Virginia Air National Guard cargo plane exploded in a ball of flames one eyewitness said 'looked like a volcano explosion' and smashed into a house, killing all six crewmen aboard.
The house was reduced to charred rubble and its resident escaped with only singed hair and eyebrows. Officials at the scene said it was a miracle Milton Barnhart survived. Barnhart, 77, said he had dreamed two weeks ago that a helicopter had crashed into his home.
The C-130, with six people on board, was on a routine training flight from a base in nearby Martinsburg when it went down around 9:30 a.m. EDT, said National Guard Capt. Ron Garton. He said all six were killed.
Maj. Gen. Joseph Skaff of the West Virginia National Guard said all six bodies were recovered, as was the flight data recorder -- the 'black box.' He said said the training flight had four pilots and two crewmen aboard.
Skaff said the plane has been in service since 1963, and that the unit -- the 167th -- hasn't suffered a crash in more than 33 years.
The plane was from the 167th Airlift Group, based at Martinsburg.
The Pentagon identified the victims as Lt. Col. Alfred John Steinberger III, 45, the pilot; Capt. Dallas Odell Adams Jr., 32, the co-pilot; Staff Sgt. Frederic Earl Jones, 24, loadmaster; Staff Sgt. James Timothy Hinchman, 31, flight engineer; Tech. Sgt. John Roy Funkhouser, 32, loadmaster; and Master Sgt. George Franklin Griffith, 56; flight engineer.
Authorities said it could take months before they determine the cause of the crash. Witnesses said the plane was burning before it hit the ground.
Some witnesses said they heard an explosion, then the plane, engulfed in flames, clipped some power lines and crashed into the house.
Ricky Yost, who lives down the street from the crash site, said he was still in bed when 'I heard my brother scream the plane was coming down. Outside the bedroom window I got to see it all. I didn't see the plane, but I heard the explosion. I took off running and got to see it.
'It was unreal,' he said. 'It looked like a volcano explosion. It was all black and flames shooting about 500 feet in the air.'
Barnhart said he was just sitting down at his kitchen table in the two-story wooden farmhouse where he had lived for 50 years when the plane struck the building. 'Boom! -- everything was on fire inside and out,' he said.
He said he ran through the fire to safety, knocked a piece of flaming debris from his pickup truck and backed it away from the flames.
Then he realized a plane had shattered his home.
'It knocked the whole roof off,' Barnhart said. 'The roof was off and gasoline was every place.'
Barnhart spoke to reporters in front of long yellow police tapes roping off his ruined home. The tops of the trees in front of the gutted house were splintered like burnt matchsticks.
He said he recently had dreamed about a helicopter crashing into his home.
'Two weeks ago, I woke up and there was a helicopter, probably going to the hospital (nearby). It woke me up. It sounded really close. When I fell back asleep, I dreamt it hit this house,' he said.
Barnhart, who suffered only singed hair and eyebrows, said he will stay with relatives for a while, but it was too early to say what he will do next. He spent much of the afternoon trying to find his two dogs. One beagle was found cowering inside a state police cruiser, refusing to come out.
Authorities said they were amazed he escaped from the house.
'I feel like this was a miracle, I sure do,' Morgan County Sheriff William Spitzer said. 'When I came up here, there was a lot of smoke. I was wondering how someone could have survived if they were in the house. '
Air Force investigators were poking through the debris for clues as to what may have caused the crash. Nearly a dozen firefighting units responded, and the cockpit area of the plane was still being hosed down late Wednesday afternoon.
National Guardsmen clad in camouflage uniforms were out in force, and deputies worked a roadblock to keep away sightseers. Power was out in the neighborhood, and downed power lines snaked toward the crash scene.
The C-130 is a workhorse plane designed for short airstrips that dates back to the Vietnam War era. It was long considered the safest and most reliable plane in the military, but a Kentucky Air National Guard C-130 crashed in Evansville, Ind., in February, killing 16.
A neighbor of Barnhart, Charles Henry, said right before the crash 'there was a flash, an explosion in the air someplace that shook the house, and then it hit and it was a big mushroom of smoke and fire.'
Vinyl siding on the house next door, at least 60 yards away, was warped and melted by the heat.
Henry said he was relieved to discover Barnhart had escaped the conflagration. 'I guess the good Lord wasn't done with him yet.'
