16 people killed as military KC-130 plane crash in Mississippi

In a tragic incident, nearly 16 people died after a military flight crashed along Mississippi’s Sunflower-LeFlore County line, officials have said. Leflore (le-FLOR') County Sheriff Ricky Banks said that a C-130 military transport crashed about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Jackson on Monday eveining. Earlier, on Monday, he had confirmed that 5 people had died.

Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Sarah Burns said in a statement that a Marine C-130 "experienced a mishap" on Monday evening. Greenwood Fire Chief Marcus Banks said the crash was reported about 4 p.m. CDT and debris from the plane was scattered in a radius of about 5 miles (8 kilometers).

A USMC KC-130 mishap occurred the evening of July 10. Further information will be released as available. pic.twitter.com/QEFhooJZmC

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) July 11, 2017

Banks said that a call came in at around 4:00pm as an aircraft crash truck witnessed the destroyed plane. He also mentioned that 4,000 gallons of foam were used to put the fire out.

Banks described that several “high-intensity explosions” took place which in turn drove away firefighters.Officials did not have information on what caused the crash or where the flight originated. 

With PTI inputs