Philippines Retrieves Crashed Military Plane's Black Boxes

Philippines Military Plane Crash: The C-130 Hercules transport plane was carrying 96 people, mostly fresh army graduates, when it overshot the runway on Sunday while trying to land on Jolo island in the southern Sulu province.

Philippine security forces have retrieved the cockpit voice and flight data recorders of a military aircraft that crashed in a coconut grove and killed 52 people, a top commander said Tuesday. The C-130 Hercules transport plane was carrying 96 people, mostly fresh army graduates, when it overshot the runway on Sunday while trying to land on Jolo island in the southern Sulu province. Witnesses and survivors told investigators the plane landed "hard" and then bounced twice before taking off again, said Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan, chief of the Western Mindanao Command. "Then at the right side of the airport it hit a tree -- that's the account of the injured," Vinluan told AFP.