The Lockheed MC-130E Combat Talon I aircraft impacted the sea while participating in Special Warfare Exercise 81 (SPECWAREX). It took off from Cubi Point NAS at 04:28 hours local time under callsign STRAY59 and executed a tactical landing profile at 05:06. Fifteen members of a special forces unit boarded the aircraft and two minutes later, the MC-130 executed a tactical departure. The crew made their normal operations call to a ground station six minutes into their low-level flight. The second transmission from STRAY 59 came at 05:21, with no indications of anything amiss. Shortly afterwards the aircraft hit the water. An investigation was unable to pinpoint an exact cause. The process was hindered by the physical evidence lost when the wreckage of the MC-130 came to rest on the bottom of the ocean over two hundred feet below the surface.