Military Air Crash Site

Front: Near here on Dec. 5, 1972, thirteen American military officers and airmen were killed on a training mission during the Vietnam War, when at 7:19 PM an S.C. Air National Guard F-102 fighter-interceptor from McEntire Air National Guard Base near Columbia collided overhead with a U.S. Air Force C-130E Hercules heavy transport from Pope Air Force Base near Fayetteville, N.C. Reverse: All aboard both aircraft perished, and the resulting explosion scattered debris across everal miles, with one witness saying, “It looked like the whole world was on fire.” The transport wreckage landed just NE of here. Most of the fighter wreckage landed in woods 1.5 mi. away. No civilians were harmed. The crash was one of the worst military air disasters in S.C. history.