Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993 TAG: 9302040049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MARIETTA, GA. LENGTH: Medium
7 DIE IN CRASH OF `FLYING LAB' CARGO PLANE
A one-of-a-kind cargo plane described as a "flying laboratory" crashed and burned after taking off from an Air Force base Wednesday, killing all seven aboard.The plane clipped a corner of a Navy medical clinic but caused minimal damage and no injuries there, said Lt. Pat Blassie, spokeswoman for Dobbins Air Force Base in suburban Atlanta. About 50 workers had been in the clinic.
"I heard a hum. Something was coming down. Then I heard a boom," said Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman Douglas High.
"All we tried to do was get everybody out the front door," High said, adding that the back of the clinic building was engulfed in flames. "There was no way we had access to the plane," he said.
The plane was a modified L-100, the commercial version of a C-130 Hercules Transport. It was built and owned by Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co., which has a plant next to the base. The victims were Lockheed employees, company spokesman Doug Oliver said.
The plane crashed and broke apart about 200 yards north of a Dobbins runway about 1:30 p.m. It came to rest on a low hill and burned.
All seven aboard were killed, said Roff Sasser III, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. Oliver said the plane was conducting an engineering test at the time, but he wouldn't elaborate.
The C-130 is a troop and cargo transport plane used by the military, but this plane was a special version used by Lockheed for testing, said spokeswoman Susan Miles.
The plane, developed in 1984, was the only one of its kind and was called a High Technology Test Bed, or HTTB.
According to Lockheed, the plane was a "flying laboratory," equipped with data-gathering equipment to test new technologies. It was designed to fly at lower-than-normal speeds, mainly to test short-distance landing.
Keywords:
FATALITY