A plane carrying members of a National Guard engineering crew crashed and burst into flames in a farm field in heavy rain Saturday, killing all 21 people on board, officials said. Three Army personnel and 18 Air National Guard members were aboard the twin-engine C-23 Sherpa that crashed near Unadilla, about 30 miles south of Macon, said John Birdsong, a spokesman for Robins Air Force Base.

A spokeswoman for the Virginia Air National Guard said all 18 of the transport plane’s passengers were members of a Virginia-based military construction and engineering crew on a routine training mission. The plane’s pilot and two other crew members were members of the 171st Aviation Battalion of the Florida army National Guard, officials said.

Identities of the victims were not immediately released. John Allen Bryant Sr., 57, heard the crash in a field on his farm, about two miles from his house. He rushed to the site. “It was just a horrible, horrible scene,” Bryant said. “The plane was just about completely gone. There was very little of its stuff left. It just about all had burned up. It was just awful.”

Peninsula Daily News, March 4, 2001-Section C