The 2-man crew of a Navy EA-18G Growler was still missing Friday night after search teams that included Army Green Berets reached the plane’s wreckage at a remote crash site on Mount Rainier in Washington. The plane went down Tuesday on a training flight, the Navy said, but was only spotted from the air early Thursday amid bad weather and mountainous terrain.
“Finding the aircrew continues to be our primary focus,” said Cmdr. Beth Teach, a Naval Air Forces spokesperson. “Personnel on site are methodically searching an expansive area, evaluating debris and searching for information in the snow-covered, wilderness environment.”
The Whidbey Island-based EA-18G crashed on Oct. 15 during a flight the Navy called a “routine training mission.” Search and rescue flights — which included a Navy spy plane and a submarine hunter — spotted the wreckage in terrain at approximately 6,000 feet in what the Navy said is “a remote, steep and heavily wooded area east of Mount Rainier.”
To reach the site, officials called in soldiers from 1st Special Forces Group at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle. Those soldiers, the Navy said, have expertise in “high-angle rescue, medical, and technical communication skills necessary to navigate the difficult terrain associated with the Cascade Mountain Range that is inaccessible by other means.”
In a statement, Navy officials did not say whether they believed the crew was still alive or at the crash site.
“Our priority is to locate our two aviators as quickly and as safely as possible,” said Capt. David Ganci, commander, Electronic Attack Wing, U.S. Pacific Fleet. “We cannot identify or confirm the names of aircrew involved in a mishap until 24 hours after their next of kin have been notified of their status.”
Since the first hours after the plane went down Tuesday, search crews flying Navy, Army, and civilian planes and helicopters combed the rugged, heavily forested landscape around Mount Rainier.
“Aerial operations continued through [Tuesday] night, launching from NAS Whidbey Island and searching in the area 30 miles west of Yakima,” a Navy spokesperson said in a release Wednesday.
The two-seat EA-18G flies with a pilot an Electronic Warfare Officer.
The search included EP-3E Aries II aircraft from Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1) and P-8A Poseidon from Patrol Squadron 46 (VP-46). The EP-3E is a signal intelligence plane built to eavesdrop on enemy communications and other electronic spying, while the airliner-sized P-8A conducts anti-submarine missions. Teams from NAS Whidbey Island Search and Rescue and Army helicopters from 4-6 Air Cavalry Squadron from Joint Base Lewis-McChord were also searching.
The fighter jet crashed, the Navy said, “east of Mount Rainier,” which sits about halfway between Seattle and Yakima.
The plane was based at Whidbey Island as part of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130. Whidbey Island is home to nearly all of the Navy’s EA-18Gs and its initial schoolhouse for pilots and flight officers assigned to the plane. VAQ-130 is part of Carrier Air Wing 3, which is attached to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier.
The EA-18G Growler is a variant of the FA-18 fighter with weapons and electronic systems dedicated to electronic warfare tasks, like finding and attacking enemy radar locations.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
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