COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- One person was killed and four others injured when an Army Black Hawk helicopter on a field training exercise crashed Monday into a field on the campus of Texas A&M University.

The Army UH-60 helicopter crashed at about 3:30 p.m. near the Corps of Cadets field on the school’s College Station campus, about 100 miles northwest of Houston. A crew of four from the Army National Guard and an Army lieutenant assigned to the school’s ROTC unit were the only ones aboard the Black Hawk, Texas A&M spokesman Lane Stephenson said.

DAVE MCDERMOND/THE EAGLE

Dave McDermond, with The Eagle newsaper in Bryan, got this photo of the Blackhawk crashing.

Melissa Purl, spokeswoman for College Station Medical Center, said three men were taken to that hospital. All three were in critical condition. Another crash victim was at St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan, a spokesman said, but didn’t immediately know any details.

ROTC recruiter Zachary Cook was killed in the crash.

Witnesses told The Eagle that the choppers had been taking off and landing when the crash happened. They said they saw two helicopters lift off around 3:05 p.m. The first one took off without trouble, but the second seemed to lose control.

“He went up probably 100 feet and came straight down like a corkscrew. He came down so fast that you could hear the blades cutting through the wind.  As it landed, you felt the ground shaking. There was debris all over the place,” said John Centeno, witness.

KBTX-TV

The chopper went down in Duncan Field near George Bush Drive.

Bart Humphreys, a spokesman for the College Station Fire Department said the investigation into the crash was just beginning.

The helicopter, along with 190 cadets in the university’s Corps of Cadets, the school’s own officer training unit, were participating in the ROTC Winter Field Training Exercises.