El Toro : Marine Pilot Presumed to Have Died in Crash

A Marine Corps pilot from El Toro is missing and presumed dead after his plane disappeared on a flight over the Mediterranean Sea, according to officials.

Maj. John N. Summerlin, 38, apparently crashed after having taken off from the aircraft carrier Coral Sea off the coast of France.

Summerlin’s FA-18 Hornet was on a routine training mission when it vanished Wednesday in bad weather. A search for the missing plane was called off Thursday.

Summerlin was a member of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314, the Black Knights, which was deployed last July from El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to duty with the 6th Fleet aboard the Coral Sea.

A 1970 graduate of Florida State University with a degree in biological sciences, Summerlin entered the Marine Corps in 1972, undergoing training at Quantico, Va., and Pensacola, Fla., according to Lt. Tim Hoyle of the El Toro base public information office.

Summerlin’s wife, Maj. Ann Summerlin, had served as director of family services at El Toro before being assigned to duty in Okinawa. The couple have a 14-month-old daughter, Heather Marie, and had previously lived in El Toro.

Arrangements for a memorial service are incomplete, a base spokesman said.

On Sunday, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger termed reports that Summerlin’s plane had been shot down by a Libyan anti-aircraft missile “absurd, patently absurd.”