Two Navy Jet Pilots Feared Killed in Collision

Two Navy jets collided and exploded while on a training flight off the Northern California coast Tuesday, apparently killing both pilots.

Neither of the fliers aboard the A-7E Corsair IIs on a low-level navigational exercise out of Lemoore Naval Air Station was immediately identified. The light attack jets carried no other crewmen, a Navy spokesman said.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Terry Sinclair said searchers found enough human remains in the water off Trinidad, about 20 miles north of Eureka, “to convince them there will be no survivors.”

Taking part in the search were the 210-foot Coast Guard cutter Resolute, two Coast Guard helicopters from Humboldt Bay, a fixed-wing Falcon jet from Sacramento and a small boat.

Navy civilian spokesman Dennis McGrath said the names of the pilots would not be released immediately. He said the flight was strictly routine. He did not know whether other jets were in the area.

The Coast Guard said the weather at the time of the collision was rainy and windy. Chris Ashe, who works at the Humboldt State University marine laboratory at Trinidad Head, said she saw one plane crash into the other and “then there was a huge explosion.”

Mitch Farro, who lives on a coastal bluff near Trinidad, said pieces of the aircraft were “just flying into the ocean.” The debris fell within half a mile of shore, he said.

Farro said he did not see any sign of a parachute or ejection.