Reporter-News Archives

Friday, February 20, 1998

Marion residents question decision

By RICHARD HORN / Abilene Reporter-News

Citizens of Marion, Ky., are used to military aircraft flying over town, "but most of the time there's somebody up there at the controls," Mayor Mick Alexander said Thursday.

"Yesterday was a little bit different," he said in a phone interview the day after a B-1 bomber crashed near a farmhouse four miles outside of the community of 3,350 people.

"It's scary because a few hundred yards aimed the other direction it could have landed right in the middle of town," he said. "But when you're flying an airplane or driving a car there's always the chance that something will go wrong."

Residents of rural Crittendon County were asking plenty of questions Thursday, interviews showed. The bomber, based out of Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, flew unmanned 12 to 14 miles after the crew ejected, witnesses reported.

Several witnesses also complained the bomber was flying too low to the ground, though Air Force officials reported the plane's problems occurred at 20,000 feet.

"To be honest, people around here aren't buying that," said Chris Evans, editor of the weekly Crittendon Press. "We had a very low ceiling; it was really rainy and misty and hazy, and people saw right where the 'chutes came down. And people saw the plane, and it was just a few hundred feet above the treetops.

"There's a lot of talk," he said. "Everybody feels like, yes, they can see where the crew had to get out, but they're also concerned this unmanned aircraft flew over town."

Air Force officials said Thursday they did not know what caused the crash.

At a news conference Thursday, Evans said, reporters asked officials to describe procedure when a crew ejects and asked if a pilot can guide the aircraft away from a populated area.

"They said pilots have been known to do that, but that's all they would say," Evans said.

Alexander, however, noted reports the crew had "lost total control of the plane."

"It seems like just pure, dumb luck it landed in an open field," he said.

But Alexander, an Army veteran, complimented the Air Force for its handling of the situation, and he acknowledged that aircraft from nearby Fort Campbell often fly over the area precisely because of its relatively low population.

"Everything went very well, considering," he said, "And I'm very proud of our rescue people."

Lynn Wyatt of Marion said she and her husband, Colin, were looking for firewood when they saw the bomber fly overhead, and their first thought was it was far too low.

"It was so weird," she said. "It was flying so smooth. The engines made a pretty whistle as it went by. But it got lower and lower."

They scrambled to a nearby hillside, she said, and watched the aircraft as it eventually slammed into the ground.

"It banked to the left just a little before it hit," Colin Wyatt said. "That's why we were afraid there were still people on it."

It crashed just 700 feet from Eddie Hendrix' farmhouse, gouging a trench 75 yards long and 30 feet wide and six to eight feet deep.

On Thursday, Hendrix found six calves who were injured, possibly from debris and partly from becoming caught in downed barbed wire fencing, he said.

He and his wife, Sherry, also discovered the windows of their house will no longer open, he said.

"The Air Force is going to come check for damage tomorrow," he said.

Tommy Beverly of Grand Rivers, who saw three of the four crew members who ejected Wednesday, agreed people are concerned about what happened. But he said no one in any way blames the flight crew.

"You're sure not going to be able to stay in there with an airplane full of smoke," he said. "I would have done the same thing. I wouldn't have stayed with it."