Two F-14 Jets Crash In Separate Accidents
Coast Guard and Navy aircraft and vessels today searched for a crewman missing from an F-14 jet fighter that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off North Carolina while practicing combat maneuvers, killing his crewmate, officials said. Six people were injured in another F-14 crash Monday after two Navy aviators bailed out of their jet over an airfield in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, sending it smashing into a hangar. And a pilot in Utah escaped injury today in a third military training flight in two days. The crash off Hatteras, N.C., occurred Monday afternoon 22 miles east of Oregon Inlet, the Navy said. A fishing boat picked up a crewman, who was pronounced dead. The identity of the dead aviator and his missing crewmate were not released pending notification of relatives. Five people, including the two Navy fliers, remained hospitalized today following the crash Monday morning in El Cajon 15 miles east of San Diego. The $35 million jet crashed upside down into hangars at Gillespie Field and exploded. The blaze ignited by the crash destroyed a hangar and an attached extension, but spared a nearby restaurant. Authorities said the two crewman tried to guide the jet to the runway at Gillespie Field before bailing out. Capt. Gary Hughes, commanding officer of Naval Air Station Miramar, said he was grateful there weren't more injuries, ``particularly when you're this close to El Cajon. It's a very populated area.'' The jet passed within a mile of an elementary school. ``I thought they were just doing tricks. And then we saw the parachutes,'' said Washington Moscuso, a sixth-grader at Ballantyne Elementary School. In the Atlantic accident, Lt. Cmdr. Mike John, a spokesman for the Navy's Atlantic Fleet air force in Norfolk, Va., said the plane was engaged in mock dogfights with another F-14 and an A-4 jet in restricted military airspace off the North Carolina coast. ``It was flying a routine training mission,'' John said. The cause of the crash was not determined, officials said. The aircraft sank soon after impact, John said. The twin-engine supersonic fighter was attached to Fighter Squadron 143 at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, Va. In northern Utah today, an F-16A jet fighter crashed west of Hill Air Force Base after the pilot bailed out, a base spokeswoman said. The aircraft, assigned to Hill's 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, was on a routine training mission. Spokeswoman Silvia Le Mons-Liddle said the plane went down about 25 miles west of the base about 9:05 a.m. MDT. She said the crash site was in or near the Promontory Mountains, which are on a peninsula jutting into the Great Salt Lake, but she declined to be more specific.
navy aviators;navy aircraft;atlantic ocean;f-14 jet fighter;f-14 crash;injuries;pilot;atlantic accident