UPDATE
Oct 20, 2024 3:15 PM CDT
Two crew members missing after their fighter jet crashed in mountainous terrain in Washington during a training flight have been declared dead, the Navy said Sunday. Army Special Forces soldiers trained in mountaineering, high-angle rescue were trying to reach the wreckage in a remote, steep, and heavily wooded area east of Mount Rainier, officials said, per the AP. The Navy said the names of the two aviators will be released after their families have been notified.
Oct 16, 2024 7:40 PM CDT
The Navy located the wreckage Wednesday of a fighter jet that crashed in Washington state during a routine training flight in mountainous terrain. The two crew members onboard remain missing. The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier at about 3:23pm Tuesday, according to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Search teams, including a Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from NAS Whidbey Island to try to find the crew and examine the crash site, the AP reports. Navy officials said they didn't know if the two crew members managed to eject before the crash.
Aerial search crews located the wreckage at about 12:30pm Wednesday, Mike Welding, spokesperson for the air station, said in a statement. The crash site was on a mountainside east of Mount Rainier, he said. The Navy plans to deploy search teams into the remote area, which is not accessible by motorized vehicles. Snow is expected in the Cascades through the weekend. The EA-18G Growler is similar to the F/A-18F Super Hornet and includes sophisticated electronic warfare devices. Each aircraft costs about $67 million, per the AP. The search Wednesday was happening in rainy and cloudy weather near Mount Rainier, a towering active volcano that is blanketed in snowfields and glaciers year-round.
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