San Diego

The body of a 29-year-old Navy lieutenant was recovered early Wednesday from beneath a moored tug after he failed to surface from an underwater training swim off the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego Bay.

A preliminary investigation indicated that the man drowned after he and his diving partner became disoriented, bumped into each other, then became separated. The other diver safely reached the surface, but the victim was not seen again, said Navy spokesman Senior Chief Steve Hiney.

The swimmer, a member of the Navy’s elite SEAL team, was not identified pending notification of relatives in his home state of Nebraska. Hiney said the man was a 7-year Navy veteran who graduated from the basic underwater demolition SEAL school in July, 1985.

Hiney said the victim was one of eight SEALs participating in a “routine training swim” that began at 9 p.m. Tuesday. Twenty minutes into the swim, the seven other swimmers, clad in upper-body wet suits and equipped with breathing apparatus, surfaced as scheduled.

An intensive search for the missing swimmer began immediately, and the body was found at 12:55 a.m. Wednesday, Hiney said.

Circumstances surrounding the drowning, including what happened to the man’s breathing apparatus when he and his partner collided underwater, remain to be determined, Hiney said.

The Navy’s SEAL teams are made up of combination parachutists-divers who specialize in reconnaissance, surveillance, underwater damage assessments and demolitions.