2 Navy Fliers Rescued After Plane Crash : Accident: The explosion began a fire that burned more than 400 acres 12 miles northeast of Santa Barbara.

Both crew members of a Navy attack jet from Point Mugu Naval Air Station 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 area hospitals Thursday, said Navy spokesman Bob Hubbert.

They had left the Pacific Missile Test Center, about five miles south of Oxnard, about noon Thursday on a routine training mission, Hubbert said. Officials at the air base received a distress signal from the plane at 12:55 p.m., and the two men aboard parachuted immediately after that, Hubbert said.

The plane quickly blipped off the radar, he said. It crashed in a rugged area of the Los Padres National Forest, seven miles north of Montecito.

“It was a regularly scheduled operation involving aircraft when something went wrong,” Hubbert said.

Shortly after Thursday’s crash, parachutes were sighted in the mountainous area and rescue teams alerted, Hubbert said. The pilot was rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and transported to Goleta Valley Hospital in Santa Barbara, where he was “awake and alert,” a hospital spokeswoman said.

The navigator was spotted about an hour later by a Navy helicopter and taken to a medical clinic at Point Mugu.

The crash sparked a brush fire that had burned more than 400 acres by late evening. About 450 firefighters battled the blaze as air tankers and helicopters dumped fire retardant on the burning brush. Fortunately, 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.

“Because we don’t have the extremely high winds, this fire’s not racing like the last fire,” Bittner said. “That makes a huge difference.”

The reason for the crash of the A-7 Corsair, which can fly as fast as 600 knots, will not be known until an internal investigation is performed, Hubbert said. The plane, worth between $10 million and $12 million, was destroyed, he said.

The men, both experienced fliers, are members of the Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron Thirty Four (VAQ-34), nicknamed the “Flashbacks,” Hubbert said. The 252-member, shore-based squadron provides simulated hostile electronic warfare for Atlantic and Pacific fleet training exercises.

The squadron’s flight record is “excellent,” said Hubbert, who could not recall the last plane crash involving the Flashbacks.

The last crash involving planes from the Naval air base occurred in May, 1989, when two F-18s from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron No. 4 hit each other and crashed east of Bishop, Hubbert said. One pilot was killed and the other survived, Hubbert said.