Air Force Begins Probe Into Crash of C-130 in Wyoming

WASHINGTON —  Air Force authorities launched an investigation Sunday into why a U.S. military cargo plane providing support for President Clinton slammed into a Wyoming mountainside, exploding into a fireball that could be seen for miles.

The four-engine C-130 had been assigned to bring equipment from Jackson, Wyo., where the first family had been vacationing, to New York City for Clinton’s 50th-birthday celebration. But shortly after takeoff from Jackson Hole Airport late Saturday, the plane crashed into Sheep Mountain, about 15 miles southeast of Jackson in the Gros Ventre Wilderness. The crash site was less than 1,000 feet from the mountain’s 11,300-foot summit.

Authorities said nine people were on board: a crew of eight and a Secret Service agent. There were no signs that anyone survived.

The Air Force and the Secret Service identified the crash victims as Air Force Capt. Kevin N. Earnest; Capt. Kimberly Jo Wielhouwer; 2nd Lt. Benjamin T. Hall; Staff Sgts. Michael J. Smith Jr. and Michael R. York; Senior Airmen Ricky L. Merritt and Billy R. Ogston; and Airman Thomas A. Stevens, all based at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas; and Secret Service Agent Aldo E. Frascoia of Washington, D.C.

An Air Force investigative team from Hill Air Force Base, near Salt Lake City, arrived in Jackson on Sunday afternoon to begin looking into the cause of the disaster. The plane was equipped with cockpit-voice and flight-data recorders.

Clinton had returned to Washington a few hours earlier. He said Sunday that he was “very sad and shocked” by the tragedy.

“This is especially painful to us, because [the victims] worked for me and did an invaluable service, and I am very sad about it,” he told reporters as he boarded a helicopter at the White House to depart for New York.

White House officials said that when Clinton travels, he is usually accompanied by at least one Air Force transport plane carrying communication gear and cars used by the Secret Service. The planes also sometimes carry personnel beyond those accompanying the president on Air Force One.

The plane that crashed in Wyoming was built in 1974. A spokesman at Dyess Air Force Base could not say exactly what gear the plane was carrying.

An Air Force spokesman said there was one car aboard the plane but that it was not the limousine used to transport the president.

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The C-130 took off Saturday night from Jackson Hole Airport, which has neither a control tower nor radio contact with airplanes. Officials said it crashed soon afterward, at 10:48 p.m. MDT (9:48 p.m. PDT), on the mountain that is often called Sleeping Indian because from a distance the craggy, rocky peak resembles a person lying on his back.

The terrain is so rugged that there are no roads or trails to the crash scene. Helicopters were unable to fly there in the darkness, and rescuers and recovery teams could approach the site only on horseback or on foot.