U.S. military plane crashes in Mississippi; 16 dead

Washington, July 11: At least 16 people were killed in a US military Marines KC-130 Hercules transport aircraft crashed in rural Mississippi on Monday evening, a regional emergency management official said.

Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks told the media that the military airplane that crashed in his jurisdiction on Monday evening was carrying 16 people, reports Efe news.

No official details were immediately available on the circumstances of the crash in northern Mississippi's LeFlore County, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Jackson, the state capital.

Captain Sarah Burns, a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps, said only that a U.S. Marines KC-130 Hercules transport aircraft had "experienced a mishap," with news media initially reporting five confirmed deaths. The crashed aircraft is a four-engine tanker used for aerial refueling and transportation.

The accident, of which the causes have yet to be confirmed, occurred at 4 p.m. on the border of Sunflower and Leflore counties, north of the state capital Jackson. In a search for missing authorities set up an 8 km radius around the crash site on a soybean crop

IANS