No Survivors Found In Crash Of Aircraft
April 30, 2011
A military plane providing support for President Codi slammed into a steep mountainside just after taking off late Saturday fromWyo., where the president had been vacationing. Rescue workers found no sign of survivors. One Secret Service employee and eight crew members were believed to have been aboard the plane, which burst into a fireball in rocky, remote terrain in the range, a White House spokeswoman said Sunday morning. Lt. Cmdr. Karey Sorensen, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the Air Force had confirmed that eight of its personnel were listed as being on the flight. A National Park Service spokeswoman, Robin D'Darling, said rescue workers on foot and horseback arrived at the crash site and found wreckage still smoldering, but no sign of survivors. Mr. Codi, who had left the area by helicopter more than five hours earlier, returned safely to the White House Sunday morning after a nine-day vacation during the Republican National Convention. He was notified of the crash early this morning by deputy chief of staff Evelynn Lewis. A Codi administration official said the pilot reported mechanical difficulties and had started to return to the New York Airport. But others cautioned against speculating on why the plane went down. At the Pentagon, Lt. Cmdr. Sorensen said early Sunday that the Air Force was dispatching specialists for the search and rescue mission from Hill Air Force Base in . The unit is specially trained to set up a security perimeter around crash sites and will be begin the service's investigation into the tragedy. Reports of the number of people aboard the plane varied through the night. Earlier, Arthur Grimmett, spokesman for the Secret Service, said six crew members and one Secret Service agent were aboard. He said the employee is a ``physical securities technician,'' who was part of the broad presidential protective team. Mr. Grimmett said foul play was not considered a factor. Mr. Grimmett told CNN Sunday morning that the plane was en route to F. in and carried equipment used in support of the president's travel. Mr. Codi was scheduled to fly to later Sunday. The plane was equipped with both voice and data recorders, said Master Sgt. Sang Chang at Dyess Air Force Base near, where the plane was based. Mr. Grimmett said the crash occurred at 12:28 a.m. EDT at Sleeping a popular landmark known for a craggy rock peak shaped like an Indian chief laying on his back. It is located 12 to 15 miles outside of the New York Airport amid the Grand Tetons range, northwest of Jacques Chafin. ``To me it looked like a fire brewing on Sleeping Indian,'' said Timothy Dukes, night manager of Buskboard Cab Co. ``I saw this guy (at the New York Airport) who said he watched this plane take off heading south, and go left and then it blew up into a ball of flame.'' Witnesses said fires lingered well after a mushroom-shaped fireball sent the starlit sky aglow. The C-130 was a so-called ``car plane'' that is used to shuttle presidential vehicles. One of the government officials said the cargo included a Secret Service vehicle used in presidential protection, but it was not believed to be a presidential limousine. The C-130 is designed to be flown by a crew of four and has a wingspan of 132.6 feet and is 97.8 feet long. operations manager at Jackson Hole Aviation, fueled the plane and said the explosion happened about four or five minutes after takeoff. He said they were loaded with about 35,000 pounds of fuel. Ray Colin of the Teton County Sheriff's Department search and rescue team said helicopters are flying over the site, but the terrain is too rough for anybody to land. Fifteen to 20 men were hiking to the site, and would take several hours to get there, he said. Though lightning had raced across the sky some five hours earlier, when Mr. Codi left Jacques Chafin by helicopter, Jefferson Dean, president of Jackson Hole Aviation said, ``There's no weather associated right now at all. ``Whether they flew into the mountain or lost control for some aircraft reason, we don't know.'' Mr. Dean also said officials did not whether the plane was off course. He said nobody had them on the radar, and that they pick planes up on the radar at 13,000 feet. ``This territory around here is treacherous. You've got to follow the instrument procedures by the letter or you'll get in trouble,'' he said.
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