Crew of Navy Jet Rescued After Crash Starts Brush Fire Near Santa Barbara

Both crew members of a Navy attack jet were rescued Thursday shortly after their plane crashed in the Santa Ynez Mountains and ignited a rapidly spreading brush fire.

The pilot and navigator of the A-7 Corsair jet, found near the crash site, were “in reasonably good condition” in local hospitals Thursday, said Navy spokesman Bob Hubbert.

They had left the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, about five miles south of Oxnard, about noon Thursday on a routine training mission, Hubbert said. Their plane crashed about an hour later in a rugged area of the Los Padres National Forest, seven miles north of Montecito.

The crash sparked a brush fire that had burned more than 300 acres by late afternoon. Hundreds of firefighters battled the blaze as air tankers and helicopters dumped fire retardant on the burning brush. The fire was burning northward, away from populated areas, said Becky Bittner, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. No structures were threatened, she said.

The fire broke out near the Gibraltar Reservoir, about 12 miles northeast of Santa Barbara, where a disastrous wildfire last month destroyed more than 400 homes and blackened about 4,500 acres.

Although firefighters were hampered by hot, humid weather and rugged terrain, they did not have to contend with the 50 m.p.h. winds of the earlier fire.