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CNN Live At Daybreak

U.S. Air Force Cargo Plane Crashes in Puerto Rico

Aired August 08, 2002 - 05:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now we want to head to Puerto Rico. A U.S. Air Force cargo plane has crashed in Puerto Rico. We know at least one person is dead.

Luz Velez from WAPA-TV is on the phone with us right now.

Tell us what happened.

LUZ VELEZ, WAPA-TV: Hi. Good morning. Hi, Carol.

Well, what we got is preliminary information because military officials are not willing to give that much right now. We know that there are some persons there trying to find out if there are more than one person dead. But what we have right now is that a military plane crashed last night -- it was like 9:30 -- in a very forest and darkness area near the interior of the island.

This is in the area called San Salvador in Caguas. And all the information we've got right now is very preliminary. We know the type of the plane is a C-130 and that at least there is one person dead. They have not found any injured persons. There is a commandant from the Marine Camp Dixon, which is a spokesperson, that says that she doesn't know if this type of airplane belongs to the Marines or to the Navy. And, as you know, it was supposed to reach Roosevelt Road in the east part of the island.

COSTELLO: Yes, these cargo planes, these C-130 cargo planes are very large. Where did it take off from?

VELEZ: Well, the information we got it seems that it took off from an area in the central South America. But we are not sure yet because even we got our crews around there, the authorities are not giving any information. So we are waiting after six o'clock in the morning that again they are going to try to check out the area to see if they find any other person, dead or alive, if they find any I.D.s and we're waiting for someone of the authorities from the Navy to talk to the press.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll wait for more information then.

Luz Velez, thank you very much.

A live report from Puerto Rico this morning.

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