English transcript

There is no word yet on what has happened to

the at least five crew members who were aboard

an Air Force refueling plane like this one

that went down today in western Iraq.

CNN political commentator Adam Kinzinger piloted

these exact planes in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The former congressman joins us now.

So, congressman, you flew this type of plane for two years,

including during combat.

It obviously a critically important aircraft

in the fleet of the Air Force.

What's your reaction to the news that one has gone down?

And according to CENTCOM, it was not due to hostile fire

or friendly fire.

Yeah, I mean, it's terrible news, obviously.

Um, you know, you're always wondering if you know the crews,

but it's been a while since I've flown it.

But, you know, the tanker flies, it's inherently safe,

but it does do some dangerous things.

You know, obviously, air refueling,

two planes are getting very close to each other.

And then sometimes these planes fly formation,

and especially at nighttime.

I don't know if this happened at night, but nighttime formation,

um, when you have your transponders off

and you're using what's called an air-to-air TACAN,

uh, that's stuff that can get dangerous.

And, uh, you know, this is the first tanker to have crashed.

One, uh, went down in Afghanistan maybe 10 years ago.

Uh, but obviously our thoughts and prayers are with the crew and the families.

Unfortunately, the Air Force took parachutes off of these things

about 10 or 15 years ago to try to save a little bit of weight for gas.

And, uh, I don't know if this is a situation where those could have come in handy,

but I think it's sad, uh, that they took them off, unfortunately.

Are there, I mean, what kind of emergency procedures

would there be aboard this type of an aircraft?

So there's emergency procedures for everything,

except if you end up colliding with another plane,

because you never know what that's going to look like, how it's going to happen.

Basically, if you have a collision, the whole thing is

try to get the plane safely landed as quickly and safely as you can.

There is a procedure called a breakaway,

which is when you're actually refueling another aircraft,

in which the tanker puts the throttles full forward and climbs,

while the receiving aircraft drops.

That, I've had a few close calls on that one, but there are procedures.

But if this was like an air-to-air, flying in formation, they accidentally hit each other,

at that point, it's just do everything you can as a crew to get it on the ground.

And it sounds like the other aircraft was able, thankfully, to safely land.

Yeah, well, we hope for the best for all service members involved,

and we will obviously bring you any news on that as we hear.

Congressman, appreciate it.