Desert Shield Toll Mounts Latest Crash--of F-111--Kills 2 Pilots

An Air Force F-111 fighter jet crashed today in Saudi Arabia, killing both crew members, the latest in a sudden spate of accidents that have left four American servicemen dead and eight missing in the last three days.

The jet fighter was the fourth U.S. military aircraft involved in an accident in the Persian Gulf region since Operation Desert Shield began.

The eight missing men, Marines from Camp Pendleton, Calif., whose two helicopters disappeared, are presumed dead.

For two months, military officials marveled at the low rate of accidents among American forces in Saudi Arabia.

But an Air Force spokesman, Capt. Jack Giese, said there was no single factor linking this week’s crashes.

He said that while pilots are training intensively, they are not being subjected to extra stress or fatigue that might affect cockpit performance. In some cases, however, they are flying longer than normal hours.

A summary issued by the U.S. Command today said 23 Americans had been killed in various accidents and one Marine died of a self-inflicted wound since the deployment began following Iraq’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

The toll included 13 Air Force crewmen killed in the Aug. 29 crash of a C-5A cargo plane in Germany. The aircraft was carrying supplies destined for U.S. forces in the gulf.

Air Force Lt. Col. Philip Coughter, a Pentagon spokesman, said the F-111 went down during a routine night training sortie early this morning.

The aircraft was on temporary assignment in the region from its base in England.

Coughter said the cause of the accident was not immediately known but that there was no indication of hostile fire. The crewmen were not immediately identified.

Two pilots were killed Monday in the crash of an Air Force F-4 Phantom reconnaissance jet in the southern Arabian peninsula, also during a training exercise. That plane was part of an Alabama Air National Guard unit.

Just hours earlier, two Marine Corps UH-1 helicopters, each carrying four crew members, crashed over the northern Arabian Sea while on a night training mission.

Search vessels found debris but no sign of the crew members, they said. The search for survivors was suspended today.

Many of the aircraft mishaps have occurred in darkness, underscoring that U.S. forces are stressing training for night fighting.

Pilots say it is often hard to keep the horizon in sight while flying in the desert or over water. Special night-vision goggles, designed to illuminate the landscape, also can restrict peripheral vision, they say.

U.S. officials said that despite the series of air accidents, the safety record of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region remains at least as good as it would be for forces of the same size in the United States.

“We’ve got a hell of a lot of aircraft and a lot of flying hours, and when you put up that many machines, statistically you’re not going to find anything different from in the United States,” one Air Force officer said.

He said pilots in F-15 jet fighters are flying up to four hours at a time, compared to the normal 75-minute training mission.