Accident Board Pursues Mysterious Air Force Crash

An Air Force accident board worked behind a ring of armed guards Sunday in the Greenhorn Mountains, pursuing its probe of the fiery nighttime crash of an aircraft the government refuses to identify.

The Air Force maintained its silence on Friday’s crash, confirming only that the accident board was at the scene inside the Sequoia National Forest and that guards armed with M-16s were still sealing off a large area, said Airman William Schwartz at Edwards Air Force Base.

Military officials have refused to divulge what kind of plane crashed, the base from which it took off, or its mission, but informed sources said the plane apparently was an F-19 stealth fighter or a prototype for it.

The Air Force identified the pilot as Maj. Ross E. Mulhare, 35, a native of Fall River, Mass., who was married and had four children. He was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

The pilot’s father, Edward A. Mulhare of River Edge, N.J., said Saturday that his son trained other Air Force pilots “by playing the devil’s advocate in the air, by flying like the Soviet pilots fly.”

Mulhare said his son’s work was so secret that “he didn’t talk to anyone, including his wife, about it, and had to have a lie-detector test every three months to prove it.

“I just wanted people to know that we consider our son a hero who was doing exactly what he wanted to do, despite the danger involved,” Mulhare said.