Officials are investigating whether ammunition and weaponry aboard the military plane that crashed killing an elite group of Marines, could have caused the mid-air explosion.

Seven members of the Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) were aboard the Lockheed KC-130T on Monday, when it exploded at 20,000 feet and crashed into a soybean field in in LeFlore County, Mississippi.

The six Marines and one Navy sailor from MARSOC, all from the Camp Lejeune-based 2d Marine Raider Battalion, North Carolina, had been flying from the nearby Air Station Cherry Point, for pre-deployment training at the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma. 

All seven members of the special forces were killed in the crash, alongside nine other military personnel and crew.