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Posted at 8:14 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 3, 2000

Title: 2 pilots dead in training plane crash in south Alabama

EVERGREEN, Ala. -- (AP) -- Two Florida-based Marines on a training flight died when their plane crashed in a south Alabama field, a Navy spokesman said.

Instructor pilot Capt. James J. Morris, 32, of Northvale, N.J. and student pilot 1st Lt. James N. Kerns, 25, of Lewisburg, W.Va., were killed when their plane crashed into a field about 60 miles north of Naval Air Station Whiting Field in Milton, Fla.

The two-seat, single-engine T-34C Beechcraft training plane went down in a Conecuh County hayfield near Evergreen, said U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. j.g. Sky Webb.

The two aviators were assigned to the sixth squadron of Training Wing 5, Webb said. Evergreen police officials said the flight crashed at 10:20 a.m. CDT.

Earline Castleberry told the Selma Times-Journal she called 911 after she heard the plane hit the ground in a field next to her home and went outside to investigate.

``I heard a muffled sound and then I went to the door and saw one big fireball,'' Castleberry said.

A second witness told police he heard a loud explosion and saw dark smoke while the plane was still in the air, said police spokeswoman Myrtis Harper.

The Navy regularly conducts training missions of varying skill levels in the Conecuh County area, including those involving instructors and students and training on ``touch-and-go'' landings at small airfields, Webb said.

An investigation was launched into the cause of the crash.

http://www.herald.com/content/today/digdocs/086101.htm

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), May 03, 2000