Authorities: 4 believed dead in Navy plane crash
MORGANTON, GA
Naval Air Station Pensacola spokesman Harry White told The
Associated Press that all four were presumed killed in Monday
afternoon's crash of the Florida-based T-39N Sabreliner. He said
authorities reached that conclusion as a team of at least seven
military personnel arrived Tuesday afternoon in the dense forest.
A six-person civilian crew contracted by the military also was
on hand and law enforcement officers left the wreckage undisturbed
overnight for the arriving investigators, Fannin County Sheriff's
Office Maj. Keith Bosen said.
The plane just missed a house when it crash Monday afternoon,
and authorities said no one on the ground was injured.
"The way the aircraft impacted, it was not believed that there
were any survivors," Bosen said Tuesday.
The plane was part of Training Air Wing 6, which conducts
routine cross-country missions through Fannin County, where it
crashed, White said. The area is north of Atlanta not far from
Georgia's boundaries with North Carolina and Tennessee.
Searchers found three bodies earlier and Bosen said there was no
evidence that a parachute had deployed.
The twin-jet plane can carry two pilots and seven passengers,
according to a Navy Web site.
Authorities don't know what caused the plane to go down, White
said.
He did not release the victims' names and said he didn't know
where the plane had originated. Federal Aviation Administration
spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the agency is not investigating
the military crash.
Authorities say the plane went down in an area where residents
say houses are scattered among dense trees. Fuel from the plane
also started a brush fire that burned at least 25 acres, Bosen
said.
In January 2006, a Navy T-39 Sabreliner also based at Naval Air
Station Pensacola crashed in a wooded area in northwest Georgia,
killing all four aviators aboard. It went down after taking off
from Chattanooga, Tenn.