Savannah is a sleepy Georgia town renowned for its majestic trees, historic squares, and as the setting for the wildly popular novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. What Savannah isn’t known for, however, are long periods of snow, major movie star visits, or plane crashes — all of which have happened this year with the latter event happening just this week.
On May 2, the town of Pooler, which is 15 minutes west of the historic downtown Savannah district, was rocked by a rumble that was felt miles away. According to an interview with CNN, Colonel Pete Boone, vice commander of the Savannah based 165th Airlift Wing, the military cargo plane was carrying nine crew members when it nosedived into local Georgia Highway 21. “The military is still in the process of notifying their next of kin …” He went on to say that the plane was manufactured in the late 1970s and was “unsure if the plane was flying to Arizona to be decommissioned.”
None of the crew members, who all hail from Puerto Rico, survived. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosello declared nine days of mourning for the crew.
If what Colonel Boone is true, why was the plane allowed to fly knowing that it was manufactured in the 1970s? While human life is of the utmost concern, why weren’t more precautions taken with such an aging airplane? The Federal Aviation Administration along with other aviation organizations continue to survey the debris field of 360,000 square feet. Georgia Highway 21 will remained closed indefinitely while law enforcement continues to investigate the crash.
