India Military Training Plane Crash Kills Five

A new C-130J Hercules cargo plane on a training mission crashed Friday in central India killing all five crew members, an Air Force spokesman said, the latest in a string of military accidents.

The plane came down on the outskirts of Gwalior city in Madhya Pradesh while on a routine flight, Indian Air Force group captain Gerard Galway told Agence France Presse.

"We can confirm that all five crew members have died in the crash," he said.

The incident involved one of the six heavy-lift military transport aircraft which India acquired from U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin for some $1.1 billion in a deal signed four years ago.

In a statement, the defense ministry said the aircraft crashed at 10:00 am local time (0430 GMT) after taking off from the tourist city of Agra, home to the Taj Mahal.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known but Air Force Chief Arup Raha promised a "thorough inquiry into the accident", according to local media.

He said "the best pilots" had been chosen to fly the new aircraft.

The accident comes after the head of the Indian Navy resigned last month on the day a fire aboard a nuclear submarine killed two officers off the Mumbai coast.

In one of the deadliest incidents in recent years, INS Sindhurakshak burst into flames in Mumbai harbor last August, killing 18 sailors and sinking the vessel.

India had recently deployed one of the Hercules aircraft to take part in the search for the missing Malaysian MH370 flight.

It was the first crash involving a Hercules aircraft in India, which has been plagued for years by crashes of Russian-made MiG-21 fighter planes.

India's Defense Ministry recently signed a contract with the U.S. government for six more C-130J planes, the Press Trust of India reported.