Filipino Army’s Worst Air Disaster Kills 50 | News from the Philippines

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Philippine troops have found the last five people killed in a transport plane crash in the south, bringing the death toll to 50 in the military’s worst air disaster, officials said on Monday.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was carrying 96 soldiers, most of them fighters, when it overshot the runway on Sunday at Jolo Airport in Sulu province, military officials said. It crashed into a coconut grove beyond the airport and caught fire in a midday disaster witnessed by horrified soldiers and villagers.

Troops, police and firefighters rescued 49 servicemen, including a few who jumped from the plane before it exploded and was destroyed by fire. All passengers are now counted. Seven people on the ground were hit by plane parts and debris, and three of them died, the military said.

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules was one of two refurbished aircraft from the US Air Force handed over to the Philippines, Washington’s longest-serving ally in Asia, as part of military assistance this year.

Those who boarded the C-130 at Cagayan de Oro for the flight to Sulu were army troops, many of whom were newly formed recruits, who were to be deployed in the battle against Abu Sayyaf fighters in South.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, and investigators were looking for the C-130’s black boxes containing the cockpit voice and flight data recorders.

Before Sunday, the Philippine Air Force’s deadliest disaster was an accident in a paddy field north of Manila in 1971 that killed 40 servicemen, military historian Jose Custodio said.



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