WASHINGTON (April 1, 5:48 p.m. AST) - Two U.S. Navy aviators were rescued Tuesday when their F-14 Tomcat crashed in southern Iraq, the Navy said.
F-14 SAR - April 2, 2003
The following was received from a PJ in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Names of who sent the email and of the PJs who did the pickup are not being printed due to operational security concerns.
email message dated 2 April 2003
"Pickup of the 2 F-14 Pilots who ejected last night was conducted by a
combined team of 38th RQS/ 58th RQS PJs (who form the 38 ERQS in theater)
and safely returned to US control. Hooyah!"
F-14 Crashes In Iraq
Two
Pilots Rescued
Apr 2, 2003 8:20
am US/Central
(AP)
(WASHINGTON)
A F-14
Tomcat strike fighter crashed into the Iraqi desert during a bombing mission
early Wednesday after a mechanical failure caused its engines to fail, senior
Navy officers said.
The pilot and a second
crewman ejected to safety and were rescued by helicopter.
The F-14A -- a type of
plane that dates from the late 1960s and is among the Navy's oldest -- went down
in southern Iraq about 1:50 a.m. said Rear Adm. Matthew G. Moffit, commander of
the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, the plane's base.
He declined to be more
specific about the location.
The two crew on board
-- the fighter's pilot and its radio intercept officer -- ejected from the
cockpit and parachuted to the ground, he said.
A search and rescue
helicopter reached the downed crew "fairly rapidly" and they were taken to Ahmed
Al Jaber Air base in Kuwait for medical checkups.
Capt. Patrick
Driscoll, the commander of the Kitty Hawk's air wing, said the radio intercept
officer injured his ankle and that both crew received minor injuries from the
ejection and landing.
The crash was the
first confirmed report of a U.S. plane going down in Iraq during the war, but
was the third Navy plane to be lost to accidents or mechanical problems in the
Persian Gulf within 24 hours.
A S-3B Viking plunged
off the deck of the USS Constellation early Tuesday after a malfunction and an
AV-8B Harrier jump jet went into the Gulf on Tuesday night while it was trying
to land on the USS Nassau.
In both cases, pilots
ejected from the planes and were rescued from the sea with minor injuries.
Moffit said the F-14
crash was the result of a mechanical failure, not enemy fire.
"The aircraft had a
mechanical problem on the way to a mission," Moffit told reporters, adding that
is apparently engine related.
The crash happened two
hours after takeoff. The plane had dropped some bombs, but was carrying more
when it crashed, he said.
Moffit said there was
no enemy fire present and the plane "was not in harms way or jeopardy" at the
time of the crash. The plane was from the Kitty Hawk's VF-154 squadron, which
has been among Navy strike fighter groups that have flown hundreds of bombing
missions over Iraq in the past two weeks.
Driscoll said the last
crash of a plane in the air wing was at least five years ago.
The air campaign has
intensified in recent days as Navy and Air Force warplanes pound Iraqi defenses
in and around the capital of Baghdad ahead of an expected U.S. ground invasion.
Driscoll said the
number of sorties being flown over Iraq had increased rapidly in recent days to
support the movement of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and the Army's V
Corps, which are both just south of Baghdad.
Kitty Hawk-based
planes have also bombed targets further south, in Basra.
Moffit said the pace
of current operations was probably not a factor in the crash, although stress or
fatigue on the pilots or the aircraft would be part of the investigation.
He said carrier-based
planes and crew could operate safely at a high level of intensity. Three U.S.
aircraft carriers are in northern Gulf waters taking part in the war in Iraq.
The F-14A is a
twin-engine, supersonic sweep-wing fighter that dates from the Vietnam era. It
can carry a wide variety of laser-, satellite- and unguided bombs as well as
air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles. While it is primarily a strike plane, its
two-person crew gives it extra communications and target-locating capability
compared to the newer F/A-18 Hornets. The Navy's Tomcats are being phased out
and replaced with the F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet.
Moffit warned against
complacency among pilots and air crews that launch fighters from carriers, and
the ordnance crews that load them with bombs.
"We have a tendency to
lose more aircraft to mechanical and normal operating events than we do to
combat," Moffit noted. "Complacency is out biggest enemy."
The
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (April 1, 5:48 p.m. AST) - Two U.S. Navy aviators were rescued
Tuesday when their F-14 Tomcat crashed in southern Iraq, the Navy said.
Both officers were in good condition, said Lt. Brook DeWalt, a spokesman for the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, where the plane was based.
Mechanical failure, not hostile fire, caused the crash during a strike mission, DeWalt said. It was the first U.S. airplane to crash in Iraq during the war.
A helicopter rescue team recovered the pilot and the radar intercept officer from the two-seat strike jet, DeWalt said.
The rescue brings to 67 the number of coalition forces saved by combat search and rescue operations, DeWalt said.