FORT HUACHUCA — Just after taking off from Libby Army Airfield Wednesday morning, an Air Force C-130 transport crashed north of the runway, killing or injuring the 35 people aboard the plane, post officials said.

The plane, which had five crew members and 30 soldiers on it heading for Fort Bragg, N.C., from where the fort soldiers would deploy, was shot down by a stolen Stinger, ground-to-air-missile, a spokesman said.

Fortunately, it never really happened.

The crash, deaths and injuries were an exercise, part of this week’s post events testing security and reaction to incidents. The fort performs such exercises on a yearly basis.

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Jason Pease, the airfield safety officer, started the exercise with a radio message.

“Libby ground, exercise, exercise, exercise. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. A plane just collided with an object, going down north of the airfield. There are 35 souls aboard,” part of his broadcast stated.

The exercise began at 8:04 a.m. under a blue sky and warming sun.

By 8:18 a.m., the first emergency vehicle — a fire truck from Libby’s fire station — arrived.

Fort firefighters got out, some dragging a hose to the smoking fuselage and then spraying water on the plane.

But before that happened, the driver inside the truck released a powerful blast of water from one of the onboard nozzles. The water burst was so powerful that part of a mannequin being used to indicate a dead person was turned over and over.

There was as much realism as possible in the training exercise. Soldiers played the part of victims, made even more compelling by Hollywood-like moulage of injuries and burns applied to them.

North of the runway the remains of a C-12, a twin-engine Army transport plane, stood in for the four-engine Air Force Hercules, smoke pouring from its fuselage as injured soldiers either walked around or were prone on the ground.

Each soldier, many waiting to start training at the Intelligence Center, had a part to play in the exercise script. One, whose wound for the exercise was an eyeball dangling out of his left eye socket, walked around screaming for people to put his eye back in his head “so I can see.”

Another soldier would go nowhere without his buddy, whom he called Wilson, demanding somebody take care of his friend.

The buddy, Wilson, a mannequin, was dead, but the soldier, Pvt. David Waldrip, who is waiting for his interrogator training to begin early next month, would not accept that. He constantly demanded firefighters and medics work on his buddy.

Waldrip said his part was to test the emergency responders by not leaving Wilson, at times becoming combative.

Soon, more emergency vehicles filled the crash site, with firefighters and emergency medical people going to individuals and groups of injured, making the initial determination of what kind of help would be needed.

The “walking wounded” were directed to head to one of the emergency vehicles. Soon that area became full of stretchers as other responders carried the injured from other areas.

A LifeNet medical helicopter showed up and the most critical of the injured were flown out of the scene. Ambulances also began driving others to the Sierra Vista Regional Health Center.

Linda Kamrowski, the hospital’s spokeswoman, said the facility took part in the collaborative effort with Fort Huachuca, the Fry Fire Department and others “to identify the most important strengths and weaknesses for each agency during the disaster response.” The Sonita-Elgin Fire Department from Santa Cruz County also participated.

The Sierra Vista health center received 16 “patients,” which tested the processes of the hospital staff to ensure “a smooth transition between ambulance crews and the emergency department,” Kamrowski said.

Hospital disaster response drills are real-time tests in responding to a sudden demand for services as part of a communitywide disaster, Kamrowski said.

During the exercise, normal hospital functions continued, she added.

Pease said all the off-post agencies participated to test their response capabilities, paying all their own costs for what the training provided.

Fort Huachuca officials held another exercise Wednesday afternoon involving a Code Pink — child abduction — emergency at the Raymond W. Bliss Army Health Center.

The Fort Huachuca medical facility’s exercise “escalated when the abductor created a hostage situation behind the facility,” the health center’s spokeswoman Angie Presnell said.

The fort’s military police, a special weapons and tactics team and negotiators responded “to utilize the opportunity to practice their procedures for such an event,” she said.

Herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or at bill.hess@svherald.com.