Australia Bushfire: 3 American Crew Killed As Water-bombing Plane Crashes

Three American firefighters in a Canadian-owned C-130 Hercules air tanker were killed as the plane crashed while putting off bush fires in Australia’s alpine region.

Australian authorities disclosed this on Thursday.

The Chief Of Rural Fire Services for parts of New South Wales, Shane Fitzsimmons, said that the cause of the crash was still unclear.

“Tragically, there appear to be no survivors as a result of the crash down in the Snowy Monaro area,”

“(The tanker) impacted heavily with the ground and initial reports are that there was a large fireball associated with the impact of the plane as it hit the ground. There is no indication at this stage of what’s caused the accident.”

Reuters reports that a spokesman for Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority said the aircraft went into a valley to drop the retardant and did not emerge.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau also said it would dispatch investigators to the crash site to ascertain the reason behind the sad incident.

Recall that the Rural Fire Service had said that a record 4.9m hectares of land had been destroyed in New South Wales during the nationwide bushfire crisis in the nation, leading to the death of over 20 people and about half a billion animals.