CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : DEATH VALLEY JUNCTION : 2 Killed in Crash of National Guard Jet

Two crew members aboard a California Air National Guard jet fighter were killed when the plane crashed and burned in the Mojave Desert near Death Valley. Maj. Robert M. McGann, the pilot, and Capt. Thomas M. Steed, the weapons system officer, died in the crash, said Maj. Bruce Roy, an Air National Guard spokesman. He said a new Pentagon policy prohibited the release of the ages or hometowns of the victims. The F-4E Phantom 2 was on a training mission for the 163rd Tactical Fighter Group at March Air Force Base when it went down in Inyo County, 60 miles west of Las Vegas, Roy said. The crash occurred near California 127 in a sparsely populated area between Death Valley Junction and Shoshone, just east of Death Valley National Monument.