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Thursday, February 19, 1998

Witnesses say bomber was flying too low

By Steve Vied / Messenger-Inquirer

MARION, Ky. -- When the giant military airplane glided over her head early Wednesday afternoon, the first thought that went through Lynn Wyatt's mind was that it was flying low. 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."

Within a matter of moments, Wyatt and her husband Colin watched in amazement and horror as the Air Force B-1B bomber slammed into the ground, exploded and burned furiously, less than a half mile from where they stood.

When the four-engine heavy bomber went down about four miles from Marion, the Wyatts were watching from a nearby hillside, their view of the crash totally unobstructed.

"We literally watched it all the way," Lynn Wyatt said. "We watched it go right into the ground and explode."

"It banked to the left just a little before it hit," Colin Wyatt said, using his hands to demonstrate. "That's why I thought there were still people on it."

The plane was unmanned, however. The Air Force said it's four-man crew had bailed out safely some 12 miles from the point of impact in a meadow behind the house of Eddie Hendrix.

No one on the ground was hurt.

According to the Wyatts, Hendrix and other witnesses, the plane sent up a huge mushroom cloud of fire and dark smoke. Hendrix, who saw the fire and smoke from the cab of his truck as he delivered mail about two miles way, raced home and found the wreckage about 600 yards behind his house and barns.

Hendrix said the plane, which weighs 190,000 pounds empty, gouged a trench 75 yards long and 30 feet wide and six to eight feet deep. He said he saw a few large pieces of debris "and lots of little bitty pieces."

"It looked like somebody had taken a toy car and thrown it down on pavement as hard as they could," he said. "We were hoping the crew had bailed out."

From their vantage point, the Wyatts were hoping the same thing. They were looking for trees to cut for firewood near their home when the plane came down.

"It scared us to death," Lynn Wyatt said. "As soon as it touched it blew."

"We knew they were dead if anyone was on there," Colin Wyatt said.

Wayne Keeling, who also lives in the vicinity of the crash, said he saw the last two or three seconds of the plane's flight from his front porch.

"I heard a roar," he said. "Then it hit the ground. A large fireball went up, then it exploded."

Keeling said he went to the crash site and saw a crater that looked 10 feet deep. Parts of the plane were scattered over a wide area, he said.

"There were pieces as small as a flashlight battery and slabs as big as a truck," he said. "I saw the wheels and the landing gear. Some of the tires were stripped off the wheels and some were still on."

Lynn Wyatt said she has seen military planes fly over her property before and always enjoyed it. "But I never want to witness this again," she said.

By 5 p.m., soldiers had already arrived at the scene while local law enforcement agencies and the Kentucky State Police prevented the public from going near the crash site.

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(c) 1998, The Messenger Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.