Pilots Eject As Navy Jet Crashes Off San Diego Coast
The Navy jet crashed just two days after a private jet owned by Mötley Crüe lead singer Vince Neil crashed on a runway in Arizona. In the past two weeks, a plane also crashed off the coast of Alaska, a medical jet crashed in Pennsylvania and a passenger plane collided with a military helicopter in the skies above Washington DC.
A U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft was taking part in a training exercise in San Diego this week, reports AP News. The jet had reportedly just landed and was just taking off again as part of a go-around maneuver. The maneuver went awry, however, and the jet crashed into the San Diego Harbor.
Two pilots were inside the $80 million plane during the incident, but were able to safely eject from the craft before it crashed. The two pilots were then picked up by the Premier fishing boat, which was in the vicinity at the time of the crash, as AP News adds:
Brandon Viets, captain of the Premier, said he had taken a dozen passengers out by Point Loma on a fishing trip when he heard a jet taking off from the naval base that 'seemed a little louder than normal.'
He turned and saw two people falling with parachutes. Viets immediately headed toward them in his boat. The jet remained in the air for several minutes before diving into the water, he said.
'All I could see was a plume of water and mud and muck, 70 to 80 feet tall,' Viets said.
As with the four other airplane crashes that have hit America in recent weeks, an investigation into the downed Navy jet has now been launched, reports ABC News. Clearly it's a busy time to be an air crash investigator here in the U.S., thank goodness we have a stable government in place to oversee all the investigations.
Prior to the crash, the jet had been operating out of the North Island air base and was taking part in a joint training exercise called Bamboo Eagle. So far, the wreckage of the jet has not yet been recovered from the harbor floor, ABC News adds:
The crash site has been identified and secured. Any debris spotted by the public can be reported to the Navy so it can be recovered.
The airfield closed following the crash but is expected to re-open to allow for more flights as part of the exercise.
The incident is the fifth plane crash in America in less than two weeks. While no people were killed in the San Diego incident, the death toll from the crashes in Arizona, Alaska, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. has hit 82 making this one of the deadliest periods in American aviation in more than two decades.
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