SAN DIEGO
A piece of aircraft body pulled from the water off the southwest coast of Maui Island in Hawaii apparently is from a Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter jet that crashed 400 miles southwest of San Diego last year, a Navy spokesman said Saturday.
The markings and numbers on the 13-foot-long piece pulled from the water by the Coast Guard cutter Sassafras on Friday evening correspond to the F-14 that crashed during flight operations from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger on July 15, 1987, said Cmdr. Jim Mitchell of the Pacific Fleet Command.
The two crewmen aboard the F-14 ejected safely and were rescued, he said.
The portion of the fuselage and tail of the jet apparently drifted more than 2,000 miles across the Pacific to Hawaii, Mitchell said.
“We’re very confident it’s from the jet,” he said.
A private vessel reported sighting the wreckage Friday morning in the water off Cape Kinau, six miles south of Makena.
The piece of plane will be picked up from the Coast Guard on Monday and taken to Barbers Point Naval Air Station on Oahu, Mitchell said.
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