bow5
11th Jan 2002, 20:49
From Yahoo.com
[quote]U.S. Says Pilot Error Likely Cause of Pakistan Crash
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pilot error appears to have been the cause of the fiery crash of a U.S. military refueling plane into a mountain in Pakistan that killed seven marines, a U.S. spokesman said on Friday.
The plane crashed near Shamsi in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan while trying to land at a base used by U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan.
"It seems to me that it was pilot error on approach,'' Kenton Keith, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, told reporters in Islamabad about Wednesday's crash of the KC-130 refueling plane.
Keith said the crash was "the kind of thing that unfortunately can happen in these circumstances.''
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday in Washington that the crash appeared be accidental and not due to enemy fire.
"My understanding is that there is no evidence that it was anything other than an aircraft crash,'' Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news briefing.
An initial military investigation of the crash had found ''no evidence that it was anything other than a crash into that ridge line,'' Rumsfeld said on Thursday.
"It had bladders of fuel aboard, and the fireball occurred, according to the best evidence we have, as it hit the ground, not before it hit the ground,'' he added.
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[quote]U.S. Says Pilot Error Likely Cause of Pakistan Crash
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pilot error appears to have been the cause of the fiery crash of a U.S. military refueling plane into a mountain in Pakistan that killed seven marines, a U.S. spokesman said on Friday.
The plane crashed near Shamsi in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan while trying to land at a base used by U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan.
"It seems to me that it was pilot error on approach,'' Kenton Keith, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, told reporters in Islamabad about Wednesday's crash of the KC-130 refueling plane.
Keith said the crash was "the kind of thing that unfortunately can happen in these circumstances.''
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday in Washington that the crash appeared be accidental and not due to enemy fire.
"My understanding is that there is no evidence that it was anything other than an aircraft crash,'' Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news briefing.
An initial military investigation of the crash had found ''no evidence that it was anything other than a crash into that ridge line,'' Rumsfeld said on Thursday.
"It had bladders of fuel aboard, and the fireball occurred, according to the best evidence we have, as it hit the ground, not before it hit the ground,'' he added.
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