Crash Kills Pilot Who Shot Down Libyans

A Navy pilot died Tuesday after his FA-18 fighter skidded and rolled for 5,000 feet on a slick runway at Miramar Naval Air Station, trapping the pilot upside down in his aircraft.

Lt. John Semcken, public affairs spokesman at Miramar, identified the pilot as Capt. Henry M. Kleemann, 42.

Kleemann, who was married and had four children, was one of two Navy pilots who shot down two Libyan fighters in the Gulf of Sirte on Aug. 19, 1981. The Libyans were shot down after they fired at the U.S. planes, which were assigned to the aircraft carrier Nimitz.

Kleemann was stationed at Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station near Oxnard, Semcken said.

Semcken said the pilot was landing on the 12,000-foot runway at 9:10 a.m., after flying in from Pt. Mugu, when the accident occurred.

After the plane came to a stop upside down, a Miramar crash crew worked feverishly for about 30 minutes to free the trapped pilot from the cockpit. The crew finally brought in a crane to lift the front of the jet fighter high enough to pull him out.

Despite spilling its fuel, the plane did not burn upon crashing.

The injured pilot was airlifted by Life Flight helicopter to UCSD Medical Center in San Diego, where he died at 10:25 a.m. Officials would not divulge the exact cause of death.

Semcken said Kleemann had flown to Miramar on a “routine training mission.”

Miramar officials said the plane did not deploy a drag chute when it landed, and it appeared that Kleemann was relying solely on the aircraft’s brakes to stop the plane.

Navy officials are also trying to determine why the plane’s canopy landed several feet away from the aircraft, and if Kleemann could have been trying to eject before the plane rolled over.

“All of this is just speculation at this point. We have no real clue as to what could have caused the crash. It’s under investigation,” Semcken said.

“We’re looking at the landing gear and plane’s wheels to see what went wrong. The investigators are looking to see if the anti-skidding system failed,” he said.