2 Navy aviators are found dead after a fighter jet crashed in Washington state

Army Special Forces soldiers trained successful mountaineering, high-angle rescue and method communications were brought successful to scope the wreckage, which was located Wednesday by an aerial unit resting astatine astir 6,000 feet (1,828 meters) successful a remote, steep and heavy wooded country eastbound of Mount Rainier, officials said. Locating the missing unit members “as rapidly and arsenic safely arsenic possible” had been their priority, Capt. David Ganci, commander, Electronic Attack Wing, US Pacific Fleet, said Thursday.

The aviators’ names won’t beryllium released until a time aft their adjacent of kin person been notified, the Navy wrote successful a property merchandise Sunday, adding that hunt and rescue efforts person shifted into a semipermanent salvage and betterment cognition arsenic the origin of the clang is inactive being investigated.“It is with a dense bosom that we stock the nonaccomplishment of 2 beloved Zappers,” said Cmdr.

Timothy Warburton, commanding serviceman of the aviators’ Electronic Attack Squadron, successful the property release. “Our precedence close present is taking attraction of the families of our fallen aviators. … We are grateful for the ongoing teamwork to safely retrieve the deceased.”Ganci said they could not place the missing unit until 24 hours aft their families had been notified of their status. The clang remains nether investigation.

The EA-18G Growler is akin to the F/A-18F Super Hornet and includes blase physics warfare devices. Most of the Growler squadrons are based astatine Whidbey Island. One squadron is based astatine Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

The “Zappers” were precocious deployed connected the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The hunt took spot adjacent Mount Rainier, a towering progressive volcano that is blanketed successful snowfields and glaciers year-round.

The archetypal accumulation of the Growler was delivered to Whidbey Island successful 2008. In the past 15 years, the Growler has operated astir the globe supporting large actions, the Navy said. The level seats a aviator successful beforehand and an electronics relation down them. “The EA-18G Growler craft we alert represents the astir precocious exertion successful airborne Electronic Attack and stands arsenic the Navy’s archetypal enactment of defence successful hostile environments,” the Navy said connected its website. Each craft costs astir $67 million. Military craft grooming exercises and question tin beryllium unsafe and sometimes effect successful crashes, injuries and deaths.

In May, an F-35 combatant pitchy connected its mode from Texas to Edwards Air Force Base adjacent Los Angeles crashed aft the aviator stopped to refuel successful New Mexico. The aviator was the lone idiosyncratic connected committee successful that lawsuit and was taken to a infirmary with superior injuries.

Last year, 8 US Air Force peculiar Operations Command work members were killed erstwhile a CV-22B Osprey craft they were flying successful crashed disconnected the seashore of Japan.