Navy Starts Special Inquiry Into Jet Fighter’s Landing Accidents
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WASHINGTON — A team of Navy investigators, prompted in part by the death of a pilot earlier this month, has begun a special review of six landing accidents this year involving the new F-A-18 jet fighter.
Cmdr. Kendall Pease, a Navy spokesman, confirmed the start of the special review on Monday. He stressed the F-A-18, the Navy’s newest front-line fighter, had not been grounded and said the service suspects the accidents may have been caused by “pilot technique.”
Pease refused to discuss the relationship of the special probe to the death on Dec. 3 of Capt. Henry M. Kleeman, the officer who led the August, 1981, mission in which two Soviet-made Libyan fighters were shot down over the Gulf of Sidra.
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