Mystery Plane’s Crash Probe End, AF Says

Military investigators have finished work at the site of last month’s mysterious crash of an aircraft believed to be a top-secret stealth fighter, leaving behind only a scorched patch of ground, authorities said Thursday.

Edwards Air Force Base spokesman Don Haley said all investigators and security personnel were withdrawn Wednesday from the crash site in the Kern River Canyon near the Sequoia National Forest. The wreckage had been removed earlier.

He said no other information about the July 11 crash, the type of aircraft, its mission or the pilot who was killed would be released.

The pilot has been identified by other sources as Air Force Maj. Ross E. Mulhare, 35, of River Edge, N.J. He was based at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, a testing and training site for new warplanes.

Congressional and aerospace sources have said that the aircraft that crashed in the rugged, secluded area was an experimental F-19 stealth fighter, which is nearly “invisible” to radar because of its mainly non-metallic construction and electronic shielding techniques.

Within hours of the crash, military authorities had arrived at the site and declared it a “national security zone,” bringing in personnel who cleared civilians from the canyon and barred commercial aircraft from flying over the area to prevent aerial photography.