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American Morning

MC-130 Crash Came Two Minutes After Take-off

Aired June 14, 2002 - 08:09   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Air Force now investigating what caused a military plane to crash on takeoff two days ago in Eastern Afghanistan.

Gary Tuchman is near the town of Gardez, right near the border with Pakistan and now joins us by way of videophone -- Gary, hello.

GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bill, hello to you, and we come to you from the isolated Paktika province in Southeastern Afghanistan. This is a region where U.S. forces have been looking for al Qaeda holdouts. This is also the exact area where tragedy happened this past Wednesday night.

Behind us, you will get your first live look at the MC-130 transport plane that crashed two nights ago just after takeoff. Authorities are saying it was not hostile fire, it was an accident, but it led to the deaths of three people aboard, and the injury of seven.

Two of the people aboard killed in the Air Force, one in the Army, and one of the people killed was a woman, the second woman killed during the war in Afghanistan. Her name was Anissa Shero, 31 years old from Grafton, West Virginia, an Air Force staff sergeant. Sean Corlew, an Air Force technical sergeant from Thousand Oaks, California was also killed. An Army sergeant, Peter Tycz of Tonawanda, New York, near Buffalo, also died.

You can see there is not much left of the plane that fits 129 people, it is a $155 million transport plane. Obviously, because seven people got out alive, and some of them don't even have serious injuries, a fire burned that plane after they got out of it. But that's the remnants of what you see.

The Combat Talon, as this plane is called, it is an Air Force special operations plane, and this area where we are right now is where much of Operation Anaconda, this past March, took place.

Now, we want to give you an idea of what happened, where this plane took off from, and how this accident occurred. It's still being investigated, but we do know it happened shortly after takeoff. This is a very remote, unforgiving, parched, rocky, dry area in the mountains of Southeastern Afghanistan. We're 170 miles away from the nearest paved road. And you see a little hill that stands out there. That hill, to the left of it, is a forward landing strip. There is no airport or base there. It's just a landing strip, and that's where U.S. planes have been taking off to participate in the war against terrorism. That's where the plane took off, and two minutes after it took off, it crashed -- Bill, back to you.

HEMMER: Thank you, Gary. Gary Tuchman on the scene there in a very remote region of Afghanistan by way of videophone. Gary, thanks to you.

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