Giant C-5 military jet crashes in Delaware

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An Air Force C-5 cargo jet carrying 17 people crashed and broke into pieces Monday while trying to make an emergency landing near Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Air Force and FAA officials said.

No one was killed, but several aboard were injured, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Melissa Phillips, a spokeswoman for the base, told The Associated Press.

Fourteen of the crew were taken to Bayhealth Medical Center-Kent General Hospital, according to hospital communications director Pam Marecki, all with non-life threatening injuries. Most will be released soon, she said, but some will be admitted.

Pentagon sources told CNN the aircraft "declared an in-flight emergency for a No. 2 engine flameout."

The C-5 jet, assigned to the 436th Air Wing at Dover AFB, was being operated by an Air National Guard unit, officials told CNN.

The C-5 Galaxy, the largest aircraft in the U.S. military inventory, came down short of the runway at Dover about 6:30 a.m., the officials said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane had taken off from Dover and crashed while attempting to return.

Television images showed the plane had broken into at least three pieces, with the cockpit separated at a right angle from the rest of the fuselage. The broken-off tail assembly was several hundred yards away, AP reported.

The military has 126 C-5s in its active and reserve inventory, according the Air Force's official Web site.

According to the Web site, globalsecurity.org, the crash was the fourth in the history of the C-5, which entered service in 1970. Three of the planes have been destroyed in ground fires.

The most famous of the C-5 crashes occurred in April 1975, when one of the giant jets carrying orphans out of Vietnam went down while trying to make an emergency landing in Saigon after a door lock failed in flight. The crash killed 138 of the 314 aboard, including 127 children, according to globalsecurity.org.

The C-5 can carry 270,000 pounds of cargo almost 2,500 miles on one load of fuel. The C-5's wingspan is 28 feet wider than a 747 and the military jet is 16 feet longer than the civilian airliner.

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