One U.S. Marine was killed and 21 others were injured after an MV-22 Osprey aircraft crashed in Hawaii on Sunday.
The Associated Press noted that military officials said the helicopter caught fire after the crash caused by a "hard-landing mishap" at about 11:40 a.m. local time.
In addition to the deceased, 21 others based out of California’s Camp Pendleton suffered injuries.
Several witnesses described the scene leading up to and after the crash.
Hiker Kimberly Hynd said she was taking pictures of the copter just before it went down.
"It looked like they were doing some sort of maneuver or formation — and so I was taking pictures of it because usually you can't see them that close up," she said.
Hynd added that she did not hear the crash but saw the smoke from miles away.
Another witness Ken Quinata, told KHON that he saw the chopper go down, burst into flames and citizens running to help the victims.
“The flames were coming up at least 20 feet high and a lot of people were rushing in trying to help as much as possible,” he said. “There were some medically trained people trying to scale over the barbed wire and stuff to help the people, pulling people out and there was some people performing CPR on a couple of the people on board. They were pulling some guys out. You could actually see, it looked like they had some burns.”
The military is investigating the crash and looking into any maneuvers performed prior to the hard landing.
For more daily news stories follow Michelle on Twitter @PhilaMichelle