Report: Military Plane Crashed in Georgia on Final Flight

A military transport plane that crashed in Savannah, Georgia, on Wednesday was making its final flight before being decommissioned, according to The Star Tribune.  The commanding officer of the Puerto Rico National Guard, Adjutant Gen. Isabelo Rivera, said the plane was more than 60 years old—and due to be retired when it arrived in Arizona. But Col. Pete Boone, vice-commander of the Savannah-based 165th Airlift Wing of the Georgia Air National Guard, said the C-130 was around 40 years old, and had been in Savannah for “routine maintenance” before it crashed, killing all nine Puerto Rico Air National Guardsmen on board. According to Rivera, Puerto Rico currently has five planes that are also very old. “The planes that we have in Puerto Rico—it's not news today that they are the oldest planes on inventory,” Rivera told the Star Tribune. The pilot of the plane, Puerto Rican National Guard Maj. Jose Rafael Roman, reportedly raised concerns about the plane’s poor condition to friends back on the island. Col. Pete Boone of the Georgia National Air Guard told the newspaper that they did not know if the pilot had sent a distress signal before crashing, and it was unclear if all of the bodies were recovered from the crash site.