Navy Jet Crashes; 5th Lost This Year

A $35-million Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter based at Miramar Naval Air Station crashed into the Pacific Wednesday, but the pilot and radar officer were rescued, Navy officials said.

Lt. John Semcken, public affairs spokesman at Miramar, said the plane was “conducting routine flight operations” when it ditched at 10:30 a.m. about 80 miles southwest of San Diego. The pilot, Lt. Richard Samolovitch, 25, and the radar intercept officer, Cmdr. Charles F. Zullinger, 40, were uninjured and in good condition after they ejected from the plane. They were pulled out of the water by a helicopter, Semcken said.

The plane was assigned to the 51st Fighter Squadron, based at Miramar, but it was participating in a Third Fleet exercise Wednesday with the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, Semcken said. The home port for the Carl Vinson is Alameda, Calif.

Semcken said the accident was the sixth this year involving aircraft assigned to the Pacific Fleet. Four pilots have died and the Navy has lost five planes in the accidents. The cause of Wednesday’s ditching is under investigation, Semcken said.

Four of the five planes lost this year have been F-14s. At the beginning of 1986, Navy planners estimated that the fleet would lose only three during the year.

Vice Adm. James E. Service, commander of the Pacific Fleet, had cautioned the fleet’s 3,550 aviators to fly more carefully and to admit their mistakes before another plane was lost.

In a message sent to the Pacific Fleet’s fliers earlier this month, Service encouraged them to ask for help if they ran across any problems while flying today’s sophisticated fighters.