Data Boxes Recovered in Guard Plane Crash

Military investigators said they had recovered the flight data recorders from a National Guard plane that crashed in central Georgia, but efforts to recover the bodies of 21 soldiers were hindered by thick mud at the crash site.

The C-23 twin-engine Sherpa turboprop had been returning soldiers from Florida to a naval base in Virginia when it crashed Saturday in heavy rain in a field outside Unadilla, a farm town about 100 miles south of Atlanta. Everyone on board was killed.

Military officials said they were unsure whether the recorders, so-called “black boxes,” were working at the time of the crash or contained any information that would help determine what caused the plane to go down.